Brave New World
by Riddelly
Summary: After defeating the very Devil and his allies, one might expect the new Avengers, including Sherlock Holmes, Castiel, and the Doctor, to get a bit of a break. However, fate isn't keen on letting up, and the team soon finds itself confronted with a new, mysterious nemesis- one that will prove more challenging than ever. Superwhoavengelock. Sequel to "Edge of the Earth."
1. Uprising

**A/N** _Finally, the sequel is out! I just want to establish a few things before we start: first, in addition to the Superwhovengerlock quartet, this one will also concern **Torchwood** (though only in the first chapter), and a bit of BBC's **Jekyll**. However, if you haven't seen one or more of these, you should still be alright; like I said, Torchwood is only in this chapter, and Jekyll will be explained as the story progresses. (If you haven't seen that miniseries, though, I highly recommend it- it's by Steven Moffat, and is sort of like a more mature, intense version of Sherlock. The main actor, James Nesbitt, is absolutely fantastic, as well.) _

_Additionally, this story differs from the previous in that it will be written as I post it. "Edge of the Earth" was completed by the time I posted the first chapter, but that's not the case this time around. For that reason, I don't have every minute point of the story figured out yet, and one big part that I have left to confirm is its inclusion of __slash ships. As most of you probably noticed, the previous story hinted at **Johnlock **and **Destiel**, but, at this moment, I don't plan on including either of them in this one. If you prefer to see otherwise, LET ME KNOW IN REVIEWS/COMMENTS. If the majority of the audience is interested in seeing these ships sail, then I'll make it happen._

_Finally- as always- I don't own the cover image used, and it will be taken down immediately if requested. _

_Thanks for reading, and enjoy!_

**Rated T** _for violence and language_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc. _

* * *

_They will not force us, they will stop degrading us  
They will not control us, we will be victorious  
Interchanging mind control, come let the revolution take its toll  
If you could flick a switch and open your third eye  
You'd see that we should never be afraid to die  
So come on_

~ "Uprising," Muse

* * *

**CHAPTER I. **_Uprising_

"What do you reckon we're up against, anyways? Hopefully nothing that'll burn Cardiff down completely? Because we've had plenty of close calls in the past few months for my taste."

Jack Harkness was half-running, his feet pounding against the damp pavement and his long grey coat snapping around his legs in the wind. The skies were dark over the city, and nobody was out to notice the dark-haired man or the haste which consumed him, clear in the intensity of his usually light blue eyes and the hand held stiffly at his ear, keeping a com unit carefully in place.

"I've got no idea, that's why we need you to get here!" Gwen Cooper's voice, fiery with impatience, crackled through the mechanism in his ear, and he gritted his teeth, increasing his pace.

"I'm trying, sweetheart. It's a bit tricky when I was on the other side of Cardiff with no method of—"

"Just hurry!"

He resolved not to talk, instead moving faster. The air was cold against his skin, but the tense heat inside his mind kept him warm and swift—fragments of the distressed calls he'd received from Torchwood earlier were pounding through his mind.

_It's a man, I think—_

_—Can't be natural, he's some sort of superhuman—_

_—Just come quick!_

He's trained his operatives—the entire handpicked four of them—to be perfectly coherent and careful with their communications, which is perhaps why it was so anxiety-invoking now, that all of them should be so wordless. Hell, these people had seen _aliens, _countless aliens and now they had no way to describe what was in front of them now?

"I'm at the entrance," he hissed, raising a hand to his ear again as he slid towards the perception-filtered sidewalk square that Torchwood's opening consisted of. "Is he under control?"

For a moment, there was silence, then a burst of static that lasted for several seconds. Jack swore meaninglessly under his breath and stepped onto the disguised lift. Instantly, the rain-stained concrete began to sink away, carrying him with it, away from the dimly lit street and into the amber glow of the underground Hub. No one was visible—even Toshiko was far from her usual station. "Damn it," he breathed. "Ianto—Ianto? Gwen?"

Silence.

At that precise moment, though, his com unit chose to crackle to life again—this time, however, the voice on the other end was much clearer, sounding exhausted but lit with relief.

"We've got him. Holding area, come on."

"Is everyone alright?" He leapt off the lift before it had completed its descent, dashing along the ground and towards the corridor that led to Torchwood's alien prison. There was something undeniably eerie about the blank emptiness of the space, which was usually so alight with the energy of the people working there—even for Jack, who was used to long, lonely nights after the rest went home.

"Yeah, it's fine," Gwen promised. "Just—just come quick, would you?"

"Practically there." It took him twelve seconds to dash through the side hallways and descend a level, before he was turning a corner into the long series of cells where they typically kept their Weevil stock. As per the norm, a few of the ugly-faced, orange-brown humanoids were huddled in corners, lurking behind the dirtied glass walls. One little corner, however, was what his attention was drawn to—the four other members of Torchwood Three were all clustered intently around it, peering inside.

"This had better be good," he muttered. "This is the first night off I've given myself in a month, now."

He intended for his tone to be ambiguous, up to interpretation as either hostile or joking, but according to the multiple irritated glances tossed his way, it wasn't really the time for either. Gwen looked awed, Toshiko worried, Owen disgusted, and Ianto pensive as they gazed into the small cell, which, as Jack saw upon his approach, housed a man.

Only a man, or so it seemed. He was clothed in a black suit, his curly dark-haired head hanging down, shoulders slumped and hands at his sides. So normal, in fact, that for a second it gave Jack an uncomfortable lurch to see him walled up like this. It didn't take long to overcome the strange feeling, though; he'd learned over his many, many years not to judge someone based on looks alone. So he narrowed his eyes and peered closer, searching for what could possibly cause so much tension in the stressed crew.

The answer came almost immediately.

It was in a flash—literally a flash, so quick that he flinched slightly—that the dark-haired man's head jerked up. The first thing that Jack noticed were his eyes—dark, dark eyes, almost completely black, wide and mocking. Laugh lines were etched at their ends, but something about the toothy, too-wide grin underneath lead to the impression that such laughter would be provoked by violence more easily than humor. His mouth swiftly curved even farther upwards, and he whipped his hands behind his back, tilting his head slightly.

"Aw, d'you think that you've _won, _now?" he asked liltingly. His voice, leaking through the air holes of the thin glass wall, was poisonously Irish, and almost flirty—Jack would have responded in a similar manner on a normal occasion, he figured, but this was anything but. "D'you think you've got me all caught and sealed like a mouse in a trap?" His voice is crisp, with clean, sharp edges—each of his words clearly enunciated, and all the more deadly for being so.

"I figure about that, yeah," Jack allowed, folding his arms. "Up for telling us what you are, handsome, or do we get to guess?"

The man—_creature—_sneered and withdrew, moving towards the back of the cell. His dark eyes remained locked in on Jack's, not moving at all even as his lean muscles shifted predatorily. "I'm a _person,_" he drawled, his head tilting ever so slightly sideways, "just like you." His voice was growing high, almost singsong. "Nothing unusual here, so I figure you can just let me go."

It was an odd thing to say, considering how it was abundantly clear to everyone in the room that the last thing Jack would be doing is to let the creature go. "Well, sorry to disappoint, but that's not going to be happening until we get some more information out of you."

"Following instructions so _blindly. _Did you even ask your friends what I'm guilty of?"

A slight scowl creased Jack's features, and he instinctively glanced over towards Ianto, who replied without hesitation.

"Murder, sir. He was found with a young woman who was steadily bleeding to death."

"Oh, but did she ever _really _die? I make my marks carefully, mind you." He flexed his thin fingers, and only then did Jack see the stain spread across them—rusty red encrusted the skin and nails of his right hand, which stretched and twisted casually at his intent observation. "I think you'll find the young lass to be in perfectly fine condition, at least after a few months in the hospital."

Jack turned his back to the cell for a moment, facing his team instead. "What did you bring him here for?" he questioned intently. "Anything particularly inhuman? Because as much as I hate to get rid of a pretty face, this looks like something the police could probably handle."

Owen was the one to speak up immediately. "No bloody way are we giving him to the police."

Jack raised a questioning eyebrow, and Tosh hurriedly continued, her voice rushed with fevered explanation.

"There's something wrong with him, Jack. He can… he can move too fast to be human, and the strength—all of us together could barely force him in. It's—it's insane." To emphasize her words, she lifted her arm, the shirtsleeve of which was ripped down the middle, exposing a long strip of paled flesh cut through with a jagged wound that could only have been inflicted by alarmingly sharp fingernails. Owen's hand flinched almost instinctively towards the woman's injury, and Jack nodded slowly, turning back to where the dark-eyed man watched idly from inside his cell.

"Well, we aren't gonna be letting you out anytime soon, that's for damn sure," he promised, leaning up until his forehead was practically brushing against the glass. "So, _are _you up for telling us what the hell your problem is, or will we have to guess for ourselves?"

"Probably the latter," the man drawled. "I hate spoiling mysteries."

"Then so be it." Jack nodded slowly. He didn't mind that much, really—despite himself, he couldn't help but be interested in this mystery, as well, in what could possibly have caused its existence. Finding out would be the perfect way to spice up what had been a rather dull past few weeks of work—busy, but dull, with seemingly every hour taken up by procedural Weevil hunts that had long ago lost their adventurous air. "We'll get the truth out of you sooner or later."

"Don't be so sure that you'll get it out of _me._"

"Yeah, whatever you say, sunshine." Jack stifled a yawn and glanced down at his watch, faintly luminescent in the low light—nearly eleven. "Alright, well, everybody, I say we call it a day."

"Call it a day?" Owen shot back indignantly. "There's no way I'm gonna be able to rest while this thing is still breathing!"

"Owen," Tosh murmured.

"It's our only choice," Jack said shortly. "You know he's safe here, and there's nothing else we can do, is there?"

"We could kill him," the medic pointed out dourly.

"And then never know what he is, or whether there are more like him. This is our only choice. Our security's good enough here that there shouldn't be a problem." Despite his exhaustion, Jack forced an authoritative grain into his voice, enough for the other man to back off slightly, though with a notable roll of his eyes.

"Good. Everybody head home, and rest up, because we'll take another crack at this guy tomorrow," he announced. Rather than sticking around to see them all off, he cast one more glance back at the dark-eyed man—still smirking—and whipped around, striding back up the hall and towards the higher level of the Hub.

He genuinely did not believe, at that point, that the monster of a man could possibly escape.

* * *

Director Nick Fury had learned to despise calls from Torchwood.

They were a rather ridiculous bunch, after all—considered themselves all high-and-mighty, when their team consisted of five operatives and his of hundreds. Perhaps it was, admittedly, a bit childish to see the relationship between SHIELD and Torchwood as an ongoing competition, but regardless, there was a certain frustrating feel to being so often one-upped by a small team of Welshmen in Cardiff when he ran a massive organization encompassing the whole of North America, and plenty of space beyond that, as well.

Besides, Captain Jack Harkness was an absolutely ridiculous flirt.

He didn't object, though, when the screen in front of him flashed that there was a call coming in from Cardiff. Instead, he let out a heavy sigh, sent a silent prayer to probably nonexistent gods that the man would at least _behave himself, _and tapped the _accept _button.

"Harkness," he greeted as soon as the dark-haired, blue-eyed man's face flashed to life onscreen. "I wish I could say it was a pleasure."

"Likewise, Director." Surprisingly, the captain's voice was much more serious than usual—not completely lacking its playful element, but hardly light with it. "As much as I'd love to say that I just wanted to call you up and see if you're free this weekend, there's a pretty deadly matter that we're dealing with this time around."

"Of course there is," Fury muttered, raising two fingers to press against the headache snarling against his skull. "What did you do this time?"

"Your accusatory tone wounds me, Director."

"Get on with it."

"'Course." Jack sighed, settling back in his chair, and proceeded to speak with full seriousness, giving background in the same way that a soldier would deliver to his superior. "Well, there's this creature-type thing. Human-like, you could say, but… well, he's got a bit of a temper."

"Sounds familiar," Fury murmured, memories of a quiet doctor morphing into a bellowing green monster flashing behind his eyes. Perfect. The last thing he needed was another Banner to deal with.

"Yeah, he has a bit of a thing for violent murder, this friend of ours." A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth, but his tone remained entirely devoid of humor. "And something about him's inhuman—we haven't quite been able to pinpoint what yet, unfortunately, because it only shows up on rare occasion. I've never seen it myself, actually, but my workers say that he has a speed and strength that couldn't possibly be natural."

"Go on. What business of SHIELD's is this?" Fury, despite himself, was beginning to grow impatient. As far as he could see, this creature that Harkness was describing so vaguely had nothing whatsoever to do with SHIELD, and everything to do with Torchwood. "Since when haven't you been able to deal with minor threats?"

"He's no minor threat," Jack muttered, "that's for damn sure."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Thing is, the guy broke out of Torchwood last night."

Fury went silent, the pit of his stomach growing disturbingly cold. _Broke out of Torchwood. _Torchwood's security was a _bragging right _of theirs—Harkness would often go on and on about just how impenetrable the joint was, how it was near-impossible for any of its prisoners to escape. And now he was saying that this—a mere man, at the core, despite some apparent advantages over the general population—had escaped. _Escaped. _

"And he was under full security?"

"Top notch," was the grim guarantee. "Trust me, Director, I wouldn't have called you if it wasn't important."

"So now he's on the loose. A wild, inhuman madman, and he could be anywhere in the whole damn world."

"We'd like to think he's in Wales, but there's no real way to tell, unfortunately. He didn't have any kind of ID on him—nothing at all. He's dangerous, though, and powerful. As much as we don't want to trouble you… he's quite something to stand up against. We might need a bit of help from you—whatever you can spare."

Whatever he could spare.

Fury sighed again, speaking to the ceiling. "We'll do what we can. Send me any other information you have on this creature—anything at all. Images, video recordings, documentations. We'll be on it."

"Torchwood appreciates it. Really. Thanks for your help."

"Anytime." He tried to filter as much sarcasm as was possible into the three syllables, but it appeared to be lost on the captain, who only winked and grinned before the video call was ended, announced by a flashing banner of text across the screen.

Torchwood, asking for help.

If Nick Fury had been the sort of man who let himself feel fear, this would have been utterly terrifying.

Because the Cardiff-based organization had never done something like this before. He never, not in a million years, would have expected them to actually ask for help—and help from him, nonetheless. As small as the threat Harkness had mentioned still sounded, he couldn't deny that he felt utterly sick at the prospect of something dangerous enough to merit something like this. What was even worse, though, was the thought of what he would have to do—the unavoidable steps needed to make sure that this mysterious man didn't kill anymore.

He could send agents, he thought futilely, just agents—it couldn't be too difficult to capture a _single man_, in the end, could it?

Even as the stupid ways out battled against his logic, though, he knew what he had to do. It was unavoidable—completely unavoidable, and he knew that. To track the man down, to figure out what he could possibly be, and to bring him down—bring down something strong enough to break out of Torchwood, something that held that sort of power within the body of a single man…

_They're too dangerous, all together. The last two times… explosive, practically, but the most powerful thing we have…_

Before he fully confessed the unavoidable route of action to himself, he was leaning forward, depressing the button on the small speaker that sat on his desk—direct communications to Maria Hill, who was currently situated a few buildings over, occupied with a different task entirely—something more minor, surely, than the scourge that Fury was the only one so far to know about.

"Hill," he spoke quietly into the microphone. There was a brief silence, then a buzz and the familiar sharp voice of the agent.

"Sir?"

"We have a problem. Torchwood just called, and it sounds like we have another monster on our hands."

He could practically hear her internal sigh, though he knew that she wouldn't protest. An average person, perhaps, would voice some sort of disbelief—disbelief that they could have another huge problem, this soon after Loki and the Master and Moriarty, this soon after Satan himself. Maria Hill, however, was anything but an average person, and her response was immediate.

"What do you need me to do, sir?"

He paused, then, just for the briefest moment, let his mind run over all of it once more. _Are you sure you want to do this? Is this the wisest choice? The best time? _It was unavoidable, though. Despite everything about him that wished otherwise, what he had to do was completely and entirely unavoidable, and so he spoke the next words with as much authority as he could possibly muster, making sure to show that he was fully behind the decision he was announcing.

"Get Romanoff and Barton. I have jobs for them."

"If you don't mind my asking—what sort of jobs, sir?"

"They have allies to retrieve." He took one long, last deep breath before speaking the damning words, the words that were the only choice he had ever really had on the matter. "It's time to bring the Avengers together again."


	2. Recruitment

**A/N** _It's great to see that so many of you are interested in this fic! Unfortunately, I probably won't be posting next week due to the fact that I have finals tests, which suck up much more of my time than I'd wish. After that, though, I'll be back and churning out chapters at the usual rate. _

**Thanks to** _CiCi the Awesome, piogeo, Byrneshadow, ImNotYourBreakfast, Guest, Kathrin J Pearl, glaringowl, mudkipz, DesertDarkfire, Lady-0f-Time, Guest, YourDreamer138, ImTheHero_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER II. **_Recruitment_

The stove was on fire.

The _stove was on fire, _and the whole thing was so bloody ridiculous and overwhelming that John Watson, confronted with the very issue, was painfully tempted to just throw his newspaper down on the floor and stalk out of the flat, calling over the shoulder that the detective he lived with was absolutely ridiculous and probably half-insane and needed to find himself help.

However, being who he was, John was painfully used to this.

So he settled for dropping the newspaper more tamely on the counter than he'd originally intended and reaching for the telephone in as calm a manner as possible despite the raging heat pressing in from across the room and the orange flames casting long shadows over the floor and ceiling. His heart was racing ahead of him, but the explosion was small enough—contained—and he could afford a quick call before racing outside. "You are completely _mad,_" he stated, keeping his voice even as his fingers hovered over the number of the fire department.

"No, no, I've got it!" Sherlock insisted from the sink, where he was filling a heavy-bottomed pot with icy water. John opened his mouth to release a protest, but not before his dark-haired flatmate heaved the pot around and sent a wave of water crashing onto the burners, resulting in a sharp sizzle and a massive wave of steam. Coughing, John raised a hand over his eyes and stumbled backwards, barely daring to look between his fingers at the scene before him.

Sherlock stood triumphantly before the mass of grey smoke—the fire, it seemed, had indeed been completely extinguished by the huge load of water, but half of the stove was still singed beyond repair, if what was visible through the wavering curtains of steam was any indication, and one of the burners was slowly sinking into a formless glob of melted metal.

"What the hell," John decided.

"I didn't mean for it to happen. An experiment grew… slightly out of hand." Sherlock reached up to remove the goggles fixed over his eyes, revealing patches of pale skin around them that weren't smoke-stained—reverse raccoon eyes. "I really am sorry, John," he added almost nervously as the doctor simply stared on in disbelieving silence.

"You're paying," he said quietly.

"Of course."

"And you're going to be the one explaining to Mrs. Hudson, too."

"Yes. Fine."

"Jesus Christ." He set the phone back on its hook slowly, shaking his head and taking a deep breath to soothe his hyperactive lungs. "Sometimes I'm just beginning to hope that all that time in Switzerland pushed up your maturity level just a bit, and then you go and do something like this."

Sherlock tensed—for obvious reasons; they didn't usually talk about Switzerland—but any further words on either of their parts were cut from formation by a ring of the doorbell downstairs. For a moment, they just stared at each other, both sets of eyes wide and bewildered, then John groaned softly to himself.

"If this is a client—now, of all times…"

However, Sherlock shook his head slightly, a minute frown creasing his forehead. "Clients are either more tentative or more urgent. That was a long, steady ring—someone announcing himself rather than questioning."

"An associate?"

"Too firm for Molly, too obvious for Mycroft, too patient for Lestrade. Can you name any other _associates?_"

John willingly gave a slight shrug, and their eyes remained locked for one more second before both, bound by curiosity, turned towards the door and darted out to the staircase.

"I'm answering it," John growled, "not you, not when your whole face is completely grey."

"Whoever's on the other side is going to see me in any case, you know. There's really no point to suspending the moment."

"No reason not to, either, is there?"

"I—"

Before Sherlock could form another argument, John pulled the door open, slightly out of breath as he regarded the sight on the other side.

Standing there was a woman perhaps in her late twenties, with vivid red hair tumbling to her shoulders and sharp, intensely green eyes. Her figure was thin and curvy, but less emphasized than usual due to her outfit of jeans and a slightly overlarge T-shirt. The getup was so unusual, in fact, that it took John a moment to recognize her.

"Natasha?"

"Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes," Natasha Romanoff greeted smoothly, stepping into the flat without so much as an invitation. John hurried backwards, allowing her past, and she tapped the door shut with her heel before turning to face him, arms crossed. "It's been a while."

"It has," he agreed, rather harried. "You, er… you caught us a bit unprepared…"

"So it would seem." Her eyes flicked briefly to Sherlock's figure as he stepped in front of John, his eyes narrowed with intent interest.

"Are you here for Fury?" the detective inquired. His voice was much colder than it had been when speaking only to John—not necessarily unkind, but not nearly as familiar.

"I am." She crossed her arms and tilted her head back in order to regard him fully. Despite their notable height difference, she somehow managed to hold herself on a level equal to him. "Hopefully that won't be a problem."

"Well, we—" John began, but he was cut off by a swift rebuttal from Sherlock.

"Not a problem whatsoever, Miss Romanoff. It's a pleasure."

John had to refrain from rolling his eyes. Of course, the detective had been waiting for another call from the Avengers like a child waits for Santa Claus—overeager, obsessed, unable to sit still. Even though several months had passed since the incident with Moriarty, Loki, the Master, and Lucifer, there still didn't seem to be a day when John didn't catch Sherlock sitting idly in front of the laptop as if expecting a message, or otherwise lingering near the window and gazing down at the street in hope of a SHIELD agent's arrival. Now it was finally happening.

"Well, that's good to hear. We need you back—both of you. There's something new, and Fury's dragging everyone in again."

"Everyone?" Sherlock repeated with a slight curl of his lip, but nothing beyond that.

"Everyone," Natasha confirmed.

"Fascinating. And would you care to tell us what we're up against?"

"We don't know yet. That's what your job is, Mr. Holmes—we need your help in not only tracking our new little nemesis, but also figuring out whether he's alien, human, demon—something else entirely, perhaps. SHIELD received a call from Torchwood, a Welsh alien-hunting organization, and they need our help. _All _of our help."

"I presume you'll want us to come immediately?" Sherlock inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"I'll allow you a half hour to pack," Natasha offered, making it sound like the most generous idea in the world.

"Fair."

"Wait—wait, slow down a minute," John cut in, shaking his head. "You can't just—appear out of nowhere and expect us to come with you, alright? Try back in a couple of days, maybe we can sort things out, but he's only just blown up the stove and we've got about thirteen cases going on right now—"

"Blown up the stove?" Natasha repeated. He couldn't help but notice she sounded almost amused.

"That's not important," Sherlock interjected, "and the cases are trivial, I'll ask Mycroft to put in a word about them to the Yard. It won't be a problem."

There was a definite headache throbbing underneath John's skull now, and he let out a small, pained sigh. He already knew that he'd lost, that he and Sherlock would be going on with Natasha within the hour, but he could at least try to resist, give it a last-ditch attempt.

"Alright," he tried, "I'm not saying we won't help. But just give us a moment, please—just a moment, okay? One day."

"Can't do it, sorry." She didn't sound sorry at all. "We need you now, Dr. Watson. It's a matter of national importance."

"Isn't it always?" he mumbled.

"Most of the time, yes. It's our job—and yours, as well, now that you're a part of the Avengers. You did say that you were willing to rejoin us in times of need, and now—"

"Yeah—yeah, alright, I get it," he sighed, resisting the urge to whack his head against the wall. "It's fine. I'm coming. But I need that half hour to pack."

"Of course," she agreed, a slight smirk materializing on her full lips.

Sherlock looked rather as though he had the very first night John had moved into 221b—as though he wanted to leap into the air with excitement. And, despite himself, John couldn't ignore the fact that a hint of eagerness was beginning to grow inside of him, as well.

* * *

"You know, you may be a wonderful and magnificent angelic being or whatever, but you're pretty shitty as a hunter," Dean decided.

Castiel glanced up from where he sat on the hotel bed, his wide blue eyes apparently torn between injury and confusion. "Am I?" he questioned almost guiltily, running his fingers over his wrists as a slight scowl darkened his features.

"No offense or anything." Dean squinted into the mirror in front of him, trying to get a better look at the series of thin cuts scored over his arm, when he flung it before his eyes in defense of shattering glass earlier. It was true enough that Cas's little burst of angel mojo had killed the werewolf they'd been tracking as effectively as any silver bullet, but the windows of the shack they'd cornered it in had taken quite a pounding as well, and didn't seem particularly keen on falling apart in a neat little pile of glass. Instead, the shards had flung themselves in just about every direction imaginable, many of them choosing to lodge themselves in the side of Dean's arm, from where he was painstakingly removing them now.

"I achieved what we intended to," Cas pointed out, seeming genuinely confused as to why Dean would insult his hunting abilities, "right? I killed the werewolf."

"Yeah, and you almost killed me in the process." _There. _His fingernails tightened around a small, thin spike of clear glass, slowly removing it from his bicep with a hiss of pain and a trickle of blood.

"I would never—"

"I'm being hyperbolic, dude, give it a rest."

The angel obediently silenced, but still seemed rather distressed—his half-offended expression was still visible just over Dean's shoulder in the mirror. Dean considered saying something more, really assuring his angel that it was all cool and that he didn't actually blame him for anything more than a few scratches, before deciding there was no reason to and vouching to remain silent instead. It took several minutes to continue de-glassing his arm, and he was just on the last tiny fragment when a knock rattled the door.

"For the sake of—_we don't want housekeeping!_" he half-shouted over his shoulder, not looking away from the fine bit of glass suspended between his forefinger and thumb. His arm was now streaked with a number of small red streams, from where he'd removed the shards but hadn't bandaged yet, and he figured that this really wasn't the time for company—tricky explanations and all that.

The knock just came again, more insistent, and he growled in frustration through his teeth. He tugged at the glass bit, and, after a moment, it slipped out willingly and into his palm. A small noise of triumph rose behind his still-scowling lips as he dropped it into the trash can beside the sink, then grabbed a cheap motel towel off of a plastic rack painted to look like metal. In a few swift actions, he wrapped the towel around his injured arm, tucked the limb nonchalantly out of the way, and strode over to the door, through which he snapped the same words as before over again.

"We don't want friggin' housekeeping!"

"I'm not housekeeping, Winchester."

Shit. That voice was familiar. He stepped back, eyes wide, and glanced frantically towards Cas, who seemed just as intent. He couldn't quite pinpoint the owner, despite himself, which was rather challenging, since he could be about to let in a sworn enemy just as easily as an old friend. He sufficed for a simple "Who are you, then?," hoping intensely that his ignorance wouldn't prove punishable.

"Maybe if you opened the door you'd recognize me. Get on with it, though, we don't have all the time in the world—it's in a bit of peril, in fact. The world, that is."

"I'm gonna regret this," Dean muttered, half to himself and half to Cas, then shouldered the door open and immediately lapsed into a loosely defensive stance against whatever was standing on the other side.

However, it turned out to be a man—just a man, gray-eyed and brown-haired, regarding them with a rather unimpressed expression. It took a split second for Dean to target him as—oh, hell, what was his name? Something Barton, one of the SHIELD dudes, one of the—

Great. The Avengers.

"What do you want?" he demanded, to which Barton simply rolled his eyes.

"It's not about what_ I _want, obviously. But if you are curious as to what's going on, you should probably let me in. I'm not authorized to talk about it in public space."

"Of course you're not," Dean muttered, but he obediently stepped back to allow the archer inside, closing the door quickly behind them. Barton glanced over towards Cas, his features morphing from irritableness to respect.

"Castiel. It's good to see you here, too."

"You're Clint Barton," the angel replied warily. "From SHIELD."

"I am indeed. Pleasure to see you boys again, though it would be nicer if it was for different reasons."

"Let me guess," Dean sighed, leaning against the wall and cradling his injured arm, the makeshift bandage of which was beginning to show a few faint red spots. "The world is ending again. Joy."

"I wouldn't say the world is _ending, _but Director Fury hasn't quite told me everything," Barton replied sharply. "He sent Hill to send me to get you, so I'm here. All I know is that there's some new threat and we need you again. You're in our ranks, now, so you can't really… refuse."

"Is that a threat?" Dean demanded, straightening up.

"Certainly not, unless you include to interpret it as one."

"Okay, listen up, hotshot. Where we go and who we help—that's our business. And just because our business also happened to be SHIELD's at one point doesn't mean that we're all buddy-buddy now. We've got enough trouble just doing our regular jobs, and I hate to break it to you, but the world really can't afford to lose us to a few superheroes. So—"

"We'll come," Cas interjected.

Both Clint and Dean turned in disbelief, the former looking pleased and the latter completely frustrated, though neither with any lack of confusion. Cas was still sitting on the bed, his tan trench coat sprawled over the maroon comforter, his hands in his lap. His back, however, was straight, and his eyes much more intent than before.

"Wait, what?" Dean demanded.

"We agreed, Dean," Cas reminded him, though his eyes didn't leave Clint's. "That we would come back if they ever needed our help again. And now they do need our help… so we go back."

"Why should we help them, though? What do they need us for?"

"I wish I could answer that," Clint muttered, "I really do. I couldn't say so myself, but the Director seems to think you're worth something, and it's not my place to question the decisions that he makes. So if you could just come on now, this'll be a very easy process and we won't have to do it the hard way."

"Do it the hard way?" Dean repeated, his chest itching with the urge to figure out just what that was. It was pure rebelliousness, maybe, that fueled him to defiance, but his resolve was none the weaker for it. "We aren't gonna do it at all. That's it. That's decided."

"We helped you with Lucifer, now it's your turn to pay us back," Clint insisted, sounding more weary and impatient than anything else. "Now, if we're going back to SHIELD, we need to leave—now rather than later—and we _are, _so follow me."

"No," Dean began again, but not before Castiel locked eyes with him. The pure azure of his irises seemed to knock the breath cleanly out of Dean's lungs for a moment—they were deeper than he had expected them to be, wide and determined and full of something close to imploring.

"Dean," the angel murmured. "We are not going to abandon them when they need us."

For a long moment, Dean simply stared back, unwilling to break the tension, to give in to the SHIELD agent and agree to go back, to work with the Avengers, to take the title of Avenger himself for however much longer. He didn't want this—he just wanted to keep hunting, with Cas, in the Impala. It didn't seem like too much to ask, really, and yet something or other—more often than not the end of the world—always seemed to get in the way of a relatively peaceful life like that.

"Fine," he muttered. "_Fine. _We'll help your stupid Avengers. But that's only because we promised to once, and—"

"Yeah, I know. Follow me." And, without another word or so much as a glance of acknowledgement in Dean's direction, the agent strolled out the door. It took a moment of shocked confusion—were they supposed to pack? Straighten the beds? At least grab the toothbrush from the sink?—but then Castiel stood and the two of them followed, Dean's stomach twisting at the thought of what could possibly be dangerous enough to warrant SHIELD's retrieval of him and his angel.


	3. Lupine

**A/N** _Aaaand I'm back! _

**Thanks to **_Byrneshadow, mudkipz, and Guest_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER III. **_Lupine_

"Alright, but _really?" _Tony Stark demanded, leaning forward and settling his elbows on the table so that his chin could rest comfortably on one hand. "Come on, you've got to give us _some _credit. We fought Loki off perfectly well on our own the first time, right? And this guy sounds like a hell of a lot less than a god. They're just going to be an annoyance, really."

"You don't know anything about the man that we're up against," Fury retorted.

"Yeah, well, neither do you. Don't you think we might at least want to do a _bit _of research before bringing in our alien backup?"

"Only one of them is alien. And they're here _for _research, at least in part." It was clear from his rather condescending tone as well as his gritted teeth that the Director's patience was wearing thin, but Tony couldn't say he minded. It was almost fun to spite Fury, every once in a while, especially when he'd been pulled away _yet again _from a nice, relaxing stretch of time off just so that he could fight yet more big baddies. "Sherlock Holmes's strength is rooted in intelligence, not combat, so that's what we'll be using him for."

"Honestly, it's almost offensive that you're calling in extra brains, what with everything you've got already. Right, Bruce?"

Dr. Bruce Banner, unlike Tony, was trying his best not to rouse any sort of conflict, standing at the back of the small room they were gathered in and carefully polishing his glasses with the edge of his dark violet shirt. He made a show of glancing up and clearing his throat, as though he hadn't been listening all along, before carefully choosing his words.

"I, uh… whatever choices Director Fury's chosen to make, I'm sure—"

"He agrees with me," Tony interrupts, shifting his position so that he was leaning back, palms flat on the table. "No need for demon hunters, or angels, or aliens. And definitely not psychopathic geniuses."

Fury just sighed and turned his back, rubbing the heel of his hand against his forehead in clear exasperation. Tony smirked to himself and drummed his fingers along the chrome tabletop, intentionally hitting out the beat of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man." A stifled groan came from the approximate direction of Steve Rogers, a couple of chairs away from him, and he cheerfully picked up the pace.

The conference room that they were in was square-shaped, and looked just about as drab as possible save the sleek metal surfaces—molded plastic chairs topping plain, office building-type gray carpeting. A single long table separated the long rows of chairs from the front, where Fury was currently standing. Tony's chair was pushed up to its edge, while Steve sat in the third row. The other two assembled Avengers, Bruce and Thor, stood near the back, the latter with his arms folded and a thoughtful, distant expression on his face.

Though he wasn't going to say anything about it, Tony tried his best not to look in Thor's direction—he hated to see the look of the formerly mighty Asgardian, nowadays. Ever since the last battle, when Loki had been killed—well, Thor was changed, and not for the better. He had a sort of intensified solemnity to him, a darkness of sorts, and while Tony wasn't about to actually avoid him because of it, it was hardly something to be sought after. While he had formerly added warmth and even humor to company, the so-called god now only brought a vague, lingering sense of sorrow, and that was the last thing that Tony wanted complicating his emotions.

Of course, that did rather limit his interaction options. What with Steve being Steve and Bruce staying quiet, there was really no one to chat with other than Fury, who didn't seem to be in the sunniest mood himself. And Tony _wanted _to talk right now—it was the only way he had to keep his frustration from boiling over. He _was_ frustrated, extremely frustrated, at the fact that Fury felt the need to call in a _team of superheroes—_no, not even just that, but also those whom he considered to be their rather secondary recruits, brought in last time only because they needed a bit more power in order to fight the _Devil—_all of them, to fight a single man whose only crime seemed to be escaping a somewhat high-security prison… well, it was all just rather aggravating.

Luckily or otherwise, he was spared having to sit and stew any longer by the opening of the door on the other side of the room. He leaned back in his chair and tilted his chin back, just in time to catch sight of the lean form of Clint Barton, followed by the leather jacket and tan trench coat of Dean Winchester and the angel Castiel. A small smirk twitched the corner of Tony's lips. As the other recruits went, Dean and Cas were probably his favorites—not affectedly British, not absurdly obsessed with themselves (or at least not in an antisocial way), and, in the case of the former, utterly and completely human.

"Good," Fury spoke up as his one dark eye caught ahold of them, "you came."

"We weren't given much of a _choice,_" Dean grumbled, but there was a shade of excitement in his green eyes that was impossible to miss. It couldn't be clearer that he was at least a bit glad to be back here, among heroes and technology, back on the track of more organized world-saving than that which he usually found himself submerged in.

"Our compliance was voluntary, though," Castiel spoke up, taking in the sight before him. Steve, who Tony knew to have a bit of a fondness for the angel, raised a hand in greeting, and the gesture was returned with a shallow nod.

"Well, that's quite a thing to hear, seeing as the rest of you were far from willing." He half-spat the last couple of words, and Tony could practically hear how precisely they were aimed at him, even though the Director was staring in the opposite direction. He shrugged slightly, his smile widening, and stood up, lifting a hand in Dean's direction.

"Nice to see you're still looking good, Winchester."

Dean looked a bit surprised for a second, then smiled slightly and took it, delivering a quick, firm shake. "You too, uh… Iron Man."

Tony decided, after a moment of deliberation, that the admiration in the younger man's voice wasn't just a trick of his own ego. "Tony's fine," he replied with a wink, then pulled back and offered the same greeting to Castiel. "And you, angel. Recovered from that stab wound yet?"

"You were among the two who forced me to come here the first time," Cas murmured, entirely ignoring the hand, which Tony reluctantly dropped. "I would have recovered within hours if not for your interference."

"Yeah. Well. Maybe. Water under the bridge, anyways, isn't it? We've got a fresh start, now. New Apocalypse and everything."

"Stark! Will you quit referring to a simple procedural mission as the _end of the world?_" Fury snapped, annoyance bristling in his tone.

"Just as soon as you stop treating it like that, sure."

Clint, who couldn't have looked less like he wanted to be there, let out a small huff and paced wordlessly to the middle of the sea of chairs, as far away from the rest as he could get, then sat down and settled his elbows on his knees, shoulders hunched and looking more bored than anything else.

"It's my damned team, Stark, and I'll control their assignments however I like. Winchester, Barton," Fury plowed on, clearly not wishing to linger on the subject, "you got here alright? No trouble?"

"Actually," Dean cut in before Clint could begin to speak, "since you mention it, there was a bit of a… helicopter."

"What about the helicopter?"

"It… um. Well—"

"Dean doesn't like flying," Castiel cut in, as if it was the most matter-of-fact concept in the world. "It causes him to become… sick, and panicked."

"And a right pain in the ass," Clint added under his breath.

"I'm just suggesting that maybe other methods of transport should be considered!" Dean cut across, his voice a bit louder than before. Tony raised his eyebrows, stifling a laugh at the half-indignant, half-nauseous expression on the hunter's face. "I mean, helicopters aren't the safest things, aren't they? Not to, uh, insult your decisions or anything, Director—"

"As if. Seems like people have done nothing but insult my decisions all day," Fury growled, with a rather pointed glance towards Tony.

He was spared replying, however, by the opening of the door again, this time to allow in the familiar figures of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. The former strode with his chin held high, dark gray coat billowing out behind him, while the latter followed in a much more hasty, modest manner. Once the two men were inside, Natasha Romanoff slipped after, tapping the door shut with her heel. She exchanged an exasperated glance with Clint, who smiled ever so slightly at the sight of her.

"Holmes, Watson," Fury greeted, sounding more than a little relieved that they had arrived. "Take a seat right away, if you don't mind, we're a bit short on time."

"I brought them as soon as I could, Director," Natasha began, but he held up a hand, gesturing for her silence as he returned to the center of the desk. She dipped her chin and stepped back willingly, slipping into the chair next to Clint and leaning over to murmur something in his ear, which elicited the materialization of a swift grin across his usually hard face.

Sherlock moved immediately to the front row, and John paced unwillingly after him, so that they ended up next to Steve, still separated from Tony by a few seats. Dean and Cas aimed farther for the back of the room, closer to where Thor still stood, while Bruce simply settled into the seat positioned nearest the corner he'd been contemplating in.

"Wonderful," Fury growled under his breath, sarcasm clear even in the barely-spoken word. "It's fantastic to see you all maintaining the team spirit I've grown to rely on."

Dean's response was to fold his arms behind his shoulders and tilt his chair back slightly, so that it was teetering on its silver legs. Fury's mouth tightened.

"I swear, I will never stop feeling like a kindergarten teacher. Winchester, act your age, or I'm going to tell you to exit the room due to pure immaturity."

"Hey, I didn't want to be here."

"Dean," Castiel murmured, glancing over. Dean huffed slightly, but obediently let all four of his chair's legs settle onto the ground, and moved his hands back to his lap. Fury hardly looked pleased.

"Good. Now that you're all somewhat in line, listen up. We've got a problem on our hands—a big problem. I can't tell you how big, because even I don't know. As you all know, Torchwood—a Welsh affiliate of ours—has contacted us with news of a creature. A… very dangerous creature. When this thing is out and allowed to initiate the havoc that it constantly does, none of the population of Europe is safe."

"Wait, hold up. A _single creature?_" Dean echoed disbelievingly. "We killed the Devil, right? And three of his buddies, at that."

"Exactly," Fury sighed, "which is why I've called you in again." His tone grew a hint condescending for his next words—"It's much appreciated, Winchester, that you see it fit to make my point _painfully _clear for the entire room."

Dean sunk down ever-so-slightly in his seat, apparently not entirely immune to the irritation and power contained in Fury's voice.

"Now," the Director continued. "Allow me to elaborate—_hopefully _without farther interruption. Yes, a single creature. We know barely anything about it—though we have a physical description, Torchwood was unable to provide so much as a photograph. What we are sure of is that it takes the form of a man—it may even be human, somehow enhanced and absurdly empowered. Powerful enough," he drove on against Dean's soft scoff, "that he was able to single-handedly defeat one of the most powerful assassins _on the planet _without so much as breaking a sweat—without, in fact, turning around to meet his victim's eyes."

That rendered them all silent enough, and Fury was clearly aware of the impression that he'd given. Tony scowled to himself for a moment, trying to imagine—one of the world's most powerful assassins. As strong as Clint or Natasha, then—perhaps more so. And the thought of someone, a _person, _being able to bring them down with such utter ease—he couldn't deny the light chill that brushed at the back of his spine.

"This assassin," Fury went on, "was recruited by an organization which Torchwood knows too little about to give a name. An organization that has been following this creature, seemingly for years—and which, in the end, failed. The creature, seemingly in celebration of its victory, went on a sort of rampage, which resulted in one confirmed murder victim, a woman in her twenties, and several other suspected. The woman—Torchwood made this explicitly clear—was not directly killed by this creature, but rather bled out from her injuries later on, when a medical crew attempted to move her to a safer location." He paused to take a breath, eyes skating over the assembled Avengers, who were now entirely silent. "Torchwood managed to capture him, but claim that he seemed alarmingly compliant—after an initial struggle, which left multiple personnel wounded, he stopped resisting, and they managed to force him into a top-security cell built under their headquarters. Approximately three hours later, to the best of their calculations, he escaped without leaving a trace."

This silence was the longest yet, broken by no one. Tony was now entirely taken in—no longer intending to make any remarks insulting the fact that Fury had brought in such a team. Whatever this thing was—and the anonymity surrounding it was perhaps one of its most disturbing features of all—it already sounded unbelievably dangerous, and perhaps all the more terrifying for its supposed mortality. Lucifer and the others had been one thing—the only human involved there had been James Moriarty, and he worked as little more than the brains of the operation. But to think of a human, powerful enough both physically _and _mentally to do the things that Fury ticked off so methodically—

Well. It was… alarming.

John Watson was the first one to speak, after what had to be at least a solid half minute of silence. His voice was a bit higher than usual, but strong and steady nonetheless. "Alright, then, I get it," he said. "We're dealing with something new and strange and completely deadly. Then why are there only some of us here?"

A frown darkened Fury's features. "Excuse me?"

"The Doctor. Why don't we have the Doctor?"

_Of course. _The Doctor and his TARDIS had been one of the most integral part of the Avengers formed during Lucifer's reign—they couldn't afford to be spared, not during a time like this.

Fury, however, didn't look put off whatsoever—in fact, the opposite. "Oh, we're going to get the Doctor," he promised. "He's just a bit harder to track down, what with being virtually anywhere in time and space, and since we have to be sure to target him at some point on his own personal time-stream after his previous association with us…"

"How?" Dean demanded weakly.

"By way of a certain recruit, with… fitting powers." His fingers lifted to his ear, where a small black wireless piece was clipped, and pressed down on it, murmuring a few swift words. "Feel free to come in now, Agent."

Tony twisted in his seat, eyes wide with curiosity as the door flipped open once more. Standing on the other side, outfitted in the tight black suit typical of SHIELD staff, was a young woman, not beyond her early twenties, with long, straight, pale blonde hair falling to her chest and large, fawn-brown eyes outlined and intensified by dark eyeliner. She had full lips and a pretty, round face, all features which would regularly lead to an innocent appearance. However, her presence couldn't have more clearly conveyed the opposite.

She moved like a panther, pacing across the room to stand beside Fury, when she stood and tilted her chin up, crossing her arms and silently observing the crowd before her. "I'm going to get the Doctor," she explained. Her voice was English-accented—Cockney, Tony wagered, and surprisingly soft for her tough appearance. As the words exited her lips, she smiled—not widely, just ever-s0-slightly, as though being able to speak the words filled her with some sort of inexplicable joy, one pure enough that it didn't need to be expressed on her face in order to be fully felt. "He's in the time vortex, so I'm going to find him—I know vortex energy just about as well as anyone."

"She doesn't just know it, she can control it," Fury cut in, looking rather proud. Tony couldn't blame him, either—this was, he had to admit, quite a surprise, and not a bad one, either. "She has been with SHIELD for some time now—joined us, in fact, mere days after your last departure, and since has harnessed an even firmer grip on her powers. Avengers, allow me to introduce Bad Wolf—referred to more commonly as Miss Rose Tyler."


	4. Tower

**A/N** _To answer a question, I see this as being after the Ponds and before Clara. It can be considered a somewhat alternate timeline for the Doctor, since he didn't necessarily pick them back up again- in other words, the Ponds could have gotten their happily ever after at the end of season six, with the previous fic tacked onto it but without their later season seven episodes. I made it generally unclear, though, so it's up to interpretation._

**Thanks to **_theblonde2243, Byrneshadow, mudkipz, glaringowl, and .3_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER IV. **_Tower_

_Rose Tyler. _To Castiel, the name was entirely unfamiliar, and none of the others seemed to recognize it, either. Odd, considering how proud Director Fury looked to announce it, but rather than questioning anything, the angel remained silent, watching intently and taking in everything that was spoken, in hope of understanding better.

"Rose Tyler," Sherlock repeated, his eyes narrowing swiftly. Judging by the tension in his neck and shoulders, he could tell something about her was unusual, and, when he focused, Cas could as well—she wasn't inhuman, but there was something equally haunting about the young blonde woman. Despite undoubtedly originating from Earth, there was still an air to her that seemed… otherworldly.

"Sherlock Holmes?" she replied, chin dipping in a nod. "I've heard… quite a bit about you."

"Have you?" Sherlock's eyes flickered to Fury, but both he and Rose shook their heads.

"Not from him," she clarified. "There was a book, back where I come from. Well—several books. You're, well…"

Castiel's eyes narrowed as he focused more intently on her. There was excitement in her tone, carried underneath the overwhelming air of casual coolness that she was clearly trying so hard to project. Something about her seemed younger than the way she looked physically, bubbly and eager, and yet simultaneously dark and mature. This Rose Tyler, whoever she was, certainly seemed to be quite the intriguing person, and for reasons that even an angel couldn't quite target.

"…You're a bit fictional," she finished, a real smile curving her full lips. An expression of utter and complete confusion passed over Sherlock's face—Dean, next to Cas, snickered lowly, and Cas figured that the hunter was greatly savoring the baffled expression and how it looked on the usually arrogant features of the detective.

"Fictional?" Sherlock repeated, the word carefully formed, each syllable painstakingly articulated.

"Rose is from an alternate reality," Fury spoke up, but was almost immediately cut off by Rose, who seemed remarkably at home next to the generally intimidating director. And he allowed her to speak, too—there was an interesting sort of mutual respect that balanced delicately between the two of them.

"I haven't always been. I traveled with the Doctor a few years ago, then there was an… incident, and I ended up on the other side of reality. I managed to make my way back once before, only to return just a bit later. But then…" She cast her eyes down, and Cas stiffened suddenly—there was something in her pupils, which was only briefly visible as she lowered them—a bright yellow glow, flaring swiftly before receding back into darkness. Cas zeroed in on her even more intently, and the strangeness that he'd sensed before reared up momentarily. This truly was like nothing he'd ever encountered—not angelic power, or demonic, or anything in-between. It was as if Rose Tyler had access to the very fabric of the world God created—as though she taken the needle right from His hands and began creating her own stitches.

"Let's just say that reality doesn't serve as much of a barrier to me anymore," she murmured.

Nobody had a response to that, and Fury immediately launched back into speech before the silence could stretch on long enough to become eerie. "Neither do time and space, so finding the Doctor, for Ms. Tyler, won't be a bit of a problem."

"Not at all," Rose confirmed, straightening up again. She looked younger again, that childish excitement leaping back into her gaze, and Cas remembered what she had said, about being separated from the Doctor. Was there another Doctor in the reality Rose had been living in, or was she entirely alone there, condemned to a strictly human lifestyle? Of course, she hardly seemed human as it was, even without an extraterrestrial partner. Though surely she hadn't always been that way.

There were a thousand things about her that were hauntingly mysterious, and when Cas attempted to search for answers, gently brushing out against the edge of her consciousness for a light mind-read, he found only a blazing energy that was shocking enough to cause his retreat. He managed to keep his vessel's expression in careful neutrality, even as an internal shudder passed through him. The charge surrounding her was vivid gold and burned at the temperature of the sun—not only was this woman an enigma, she was also a threat, a very distinct and immediate threat that was easily enough disguised under the skin of a strong but generally benign-looking person.

"Alright, then, what are you waiting for?" Tony questioned, leaning forward and looking more than a little interested. "Vortex energy, right? Let's see it."

"It's not really a visible thing," she explained almost nervously, but Fury nodded behind her.

"No need to waste time. Go on now, agent, we might as well get him here as quickly as possible."

She swallowed but nodded, then dipped her head down for a moment, eyelids settling shut. For an instant, the whole room seemed to hold its breath, and a rustle of leather came from the side as Dean adjusted his position, watching with wide eyes. Four long seconds passed, then Rose's head jerked up so suddenly that it looked momentarily as though she'd been possessed—enough so, in any case, that Cas tensed instinctively, and felt Dean do the same beside him.

When her eyes opened, though, they were the color of no demon Cas had ever seen or imagined. The closest he could associate them with were those of Azazel, the scapegoat of hell, but while the high-ranking demon's had been a vibrant yellow, these were pure gold—_glittering, _and almost blinding, casting an ethereal corona that bathed her features in light. Several occupants of the room gasped, and Thor took a step backwards, while Sherlock's eyes widened in almost delighted amazement and Bruce's jaw fell open slightly. Fury looked rather pleased, but also a bit wary as Rose's lips began to move, her voice pouring out. She sounded different, too—her words rang, almost echoed through the suddenly small-feeling space.

"Doctor," she breathed. Though she only spoke it in a whisper, it was loud in the way that it coasted to every corner, breathy and windy, like the words of an air sprite. Then, all at once, her expression was consumed by a wide grin that illuminated her features even more effectively than the glittering light. She raised a hand, slowly, and jerked it to the side. In perfect sync, the door flung itself open, and standing there was the familiar figure of the Doctor, looking utterly shocked and with his hair sticking straight out as though electrified. By the time Cas glanced back towards Rose, she had relaxed her shoulders and let her arm drop, and her eyes were their normal dark brown again—she looked as human as she ever had.

"Now, _that _was a bit odd," the Doctor decided aloud, running a hand through his hair and looking around in almost delighted confusion. "Oh, it's you lot again, is it? Of course it would be, nobody else is quite so fond of interrupting me during very important—"

His voice stopped immediately, as if it had run into a brick wall—no, more like it had dropped off a cliff, because there was no noise of surprise, no impact. He simply went silent, as if all of his words had been sucked out of his lungs, leaving him literally speechless. His jaw was still open, in the middle of forming a syllable, and his eyes were wide—unblinking as he stared across the room, suddenly not seeing the rest of them, not seeing Cas or Dean or Tony or Steve or Sherlock or John, not seeing anyone who wasn't Rose.

His lips formed her name—_Rose—_but still no sound came out. And she stared back with equal disbelief, moisture swelling in her eyes, her breath audible.

Perhaps five seconds passed this way, and then they both gave at once, half-running and half-stumbling across the room before crashing into each other all at once, arms tight around the other. He laughed, more loudly and genuinely than Cas had ever heard before, and actually lifted her off her feet, spun her through the air in amazement.

"How—?" he began, but she cut across him with a simple shake of her head, shoulders trembling with pure joy.

"Doesn't matter," she insisted. "You—you look different."

As caught up in the emotional reunion as the rest of the room seemed to be—even Dean had a serene sort of smile in place—Cas was rather intrigued by this aspect of it. Rose was avoiding telling the Doctor about whatever incident had resulted in her control of the so-called vortex energy—just like she hadn't wanted to announce it to the Avengers as a whole. There was something unusual about it, almost suspicious, and Cas couldn't help but wonder whether even Fury knew the source of his most recent superhero's abnormality.

"Oh! Yes, well, that'd be the new regeneration." The Doctor's hands flew to his face, stroking down it as he spoke as if he was alarmed by the presence of his own cheekbones. Words then continued to pour out of his mouth—apparently, if he wasn't utterly mute, he had to be babbling. "Blimey, it has been a while, hasn't it? You look different, too, all grown up—not that you weren't before, but, well, your hair's gotten longer, and you look—well—beautiful, really."

Both of them flushed slightly, and Rose laughed, turning her head away slightly but still clutching his arms. He shook his head in utter bewilderment, looking absolutely content for one pure moment. Then his eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he took a half-step back.

"The TARDIS—I've still got Koschei—er, I've still got the Master in there, I—"

"The TARDIS won't be a problem," Fury reassured him, looking less impressed than the rest of them by the tear-jerking reunion. "Tyler, you're able to manipulate time as well as space, correct?"

"Yeah." She ducked her chin a bit, clearly ignoring the Doctor's baffled expression. Cas's eyes narrowed—there was definitely something odd going on here, but he was hardly about to comment on it. The unusual instant passed moments later, in any case, as Fury nodded and stepped forward, drawing the attention to the front of the room once more, though the Doctor and Rose didn't cease sending eager, playful glances back and forth.

"So the Doctor can easily be redelivered to any point in his time-stream after we're done with him. Miss Tyler, it will be your job to debrief him on the job we have, and that's to be done before tomorrow. It's getting late now, so you'll all be transported back to where you're staying. While SHIELD is being rebuilt, Mr. Stark has been kind enough to offer up his own personal tower as living quarters."

A small noise of protest came from Steve, but he cut himself off before forming any more articulate objections. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, looking more than a little disgusted, but made no comment.

"None of you will be disappointed, trust me," Tony chuckled, getting to his feet before any of the rest of them. "It's close enough to here, too—less than an hour away by heli."

"Wait—more helicopters?" Dean demanded. Cas glanced over to see that the hunter's face was notably paled at the mere thought, his fingers tightening around his jeans. "There's no way in hell I'm getting in one of those things again."

"You're going to have to get used to it, Winchester," Fury retorted.

"What—but—man, no. I'm not—no!"

"_No _isn't an option."

"But—" Dean began. Before he could finish, Cas leaned forward, reaching out and gripping the terrified-looking man's shoulder. He blinked briefly, mustering up his energy, and pushed out, against the space around them. There was one moment of blinding brightness, then he exhaled, and the two of them were standing on a sidewalk in a darkened New York City, cars speeding by them with loud honks.

"What the hell…" Dean half-stumbled forward, then seemed to realize what he was doing and hastily brought himself back to Cas's side. "Was that really necessary? Where _are _we, even? Just—what the hell, man?" He seemed more irritated than grateful.

"It was for the purpose of avoiding the helicopter ride that you seemed so opposed to," Cas replied gruffly, tucking his hands into his coat pockets and glancing upwards. The sky, he noted, was entirely obscured by the invisible fumes of the city, disguising the blazing tapestry of stars that he knew to lie beyond it.

"Great." He didn't sound very genuine. "How did you even know where we were going?"

"I've spent a good amount of time traversing the country, Dean. It would be difficult to ever visit New York without noticing Stark Tower."

Dean frowned slightly, the expression exaggerated by the shift of a streetlight from green to vivid red. A group of young, giggly women shouldered past him, and he turned with their movement, glancing up in time to get a glimpse of the massive, several-story glass-and-metal tower looming hundreds of feet above him. His jaw dropped slowly in amazement as his eyes found the five luminous letters affixed to the front of the structure—_STARK. _

"Wow. That's… that's where we're staying?" he asked disbelievingly.

"It is," Castiel confirmed, then set off down the street, his trench coat blowing around his legs and Dean hurrying beside him. "The others should be here within thirty minutes or so."

"Right," Dean agreed faintly, seemingly still in awe of the building before them. Of course, for someone used to spending the night in the cheapest motels he could find, it was a fantastic luxury, even more so than it would be to the average person off the street—and there were very few who deemed Stark Tower unimpressive. "What do we do until then? Do you have, like, a key to let us in?"

"Why would I own a key to the home of Tony Stark?"

"I dunno—just… what are we supposed to do?"

"Wait." Cas paused and stepped over to the wall of a dark café along the sidewalk, settling there for the time being. "For the rest of them to arrive."

"What? Out here?" Dean frowned but moved to stand beside the angel, the eagerness dropping from his tone. "For a half hour?"

"We don't have any other options right now," Castiel snapped, his patience beginning to wear thin. The least Dean could do, he figured, was at least show a bit of gratefulness for the fact that Cas thought to transport him in order to avoid the nausea and fear associated with aircrafts. But the hunter seemed insistent on complaining about everything he could think of at the moment.

"Right—fine," Dean mumbled, seemingly a bit taken aback by Cas's loss of patience. "Just… it's kind of cold out here, you know. Being practically winter and—"

His words were cut off as Cas's trench coat went flying into him—it would have hit him in the face if he hadn't managed to lift his arms up and catch it reflexively just in time. He stared down at the pale fabric for a moment, utterly confused, then looked up with a sort of blankness in his eyes.

"Hey, you don't have to…"

"I can't feel the cold," Cas replied crisply, which was true. Still, he felt rather strange without the familiar shape of the coat around him—exposed, almost, in his white shirt and tie, standing in the middle of the blazing chaos of the country's most populous city. "Next time," he added, "do not take your coat off in the conference room."

"Oh, yeah—it's still on the chair, isn't it?" Dean laughed slightly, pulling the arms of the coat on over his thin T-shirt. It didn't quite fit, but at least did the job to cover his arms. "…Thanks, then."

Castiel decided not to reply. Words were unnecessary.

* * *

It was forty-three minutes later that the others arrived, Clint with the grudging message that Fury was slightly annoyed at Cas's sudden departure and demanded he didn't do anything similar in the future.

Tony led them around to Stark Tower's entrance, complaining more than a bit about how cumbersome it was to have to use the "ground door," and they were let in by a polite but tired-looking blonde woman introduced as Pepper Potts, before Tony sent them towards the elevator with floor numbers rather than those of rooms.

"As long as you don't wreck anything, do what you want with them," he had proclaimed casually, even as Pepper winced and looked on the very verge of saying otherwise. "I've actually designed a level for each of you—well, for the original team, in any case. Holmes, Watson, Winchester, Cas, you're gonna have to go in pairs, but other than that, go wild. Stay to your own level, though. Nobody on the roof—especially not you, Clint."

And now Cas and Dean found themselves on the ninth floor, which was a wide, generally unfurnished space, deemed the "guest area" by Tony and Pepper. It featured two king-size beds up near the windows, which could apparently be tinted on command to disguise the wash of city lights that stood out like a million beacons against the dark blue night, as well as an absurdly long couch and a wine bar that Dean was far too interested in.

"This stuff is _expensive, _Cas," he commented in delight, holding a particularly slim, elegant bottle up to the light. The liquid inside of it caught the glow, causing it to gleam a dark violet-red. The hunter laughed lightly and set it back on the granite countertop with a clink.

"I thought you preferred beer over wine," Cas replied, sitting on the edge of the bed and watching pensively.

"Well, it's what I can get most of the time, what with our money," Dean acknowledged, turning and opening the cabinet to remove a thin-stemmed glass. "Man, this guy has got to be loaded."

Cas raised his eyebrows as Dean whistled slightly, pouring a stream of the dark liquid into the glass and lifting it as if in a one-manned toast. "You know, this place might not be so bad after all, at this rate. Here's to saving the world again, right?"

The angel dipped his chin in acknowledgement, and Dean grinned, tossing back the alcohol in one long gulp—it was not, Cas thought, the proper way to drink wine, at least from what he knew.

It was nice, though, to see Dean happy. Nice and rare, and Cas really couldn't be blamed for staring like he did.


	5. Sirens

**A/N** _Nothing much to say here. _

**Thanks to **_Kathrin J Pearl, Byrneshadow, and mudkipz_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER V. **_Sirens_

Waking up next to Rose Tyler for the first time in hundreds of years had to be the most beautiful feeling in any of the galaxies, the Doctor decided as he opened his eyes the next morning. She was snuggled in the bed next to his, murkily visible through the violet pre-dawn shadows, her hands wrapped around a blanket brought up to her nose, eyes shut peacefully and hair pooling on the dark pillow and sheets around her. Her shoulders lifted and fell in a gentle, repetitive motion, and he found himself smiling—just being able to lie there and watch her, to know that she was safe, that she was with him and he could reach out and touch her if he wanted… it was almost too much for him, and he suspected that tears might have formed in his eyes if they hadn't exhausted themselves yesterday, after the lights were out and he managed to be silent.

Perhaps crying was inappropriate, but he couldn't help himself—remarkable, since harnessing his own emotions was one of the things he had found himself to be best at over time. And yet now they had blown up in his face and spilled over his consciousness, ripping him apart and staining him with their myriad colors, from the dark blue of losing her to the vibrant pink of finding her again, and everything in between.

It almost helped him to take his mind off of Amy and Rory, though not quite. Their departure was too fresh, too recent, and even though he could theoretically go back and visit them any time, he knew he wouldn't let himself. Not after everything… he couldn't bear to intrude on their home lives again, and it would hurt him more than it would hurt them. Not near enough worth it, in any case.

This was enough, though. Rose was enough, at least for now. And the fact that there was a new menace for SHIELD, as she had explained in a hushed tone the previous night—it only added to the excitement sparking through his veins and flaming in his stomach. He was happy like this, with the companion he missed the most and possibly alien danger to face with a group of friends. Truly, genuinely happy, for the first time in far too long to remember.

The alarm clock rang precisely as the sun hit the horizon, sending a streak of light to illuminate Rose's golden hair. At least, he thought it was an alarm clock, even though there didn't seem to be one in the room—moments later, he targeted the electronic beeping as coming from speakers in the walls themselves, and figured that it wasn't just sounding in this room, but rather throughout the whole building. This was reinforced by its being cut off seconds later, replaced by the loud-as-ever but grumpily exhausted voice of Tony Stark, echoing throughout the complex.

"Alright, all of you get your asses out of bed and down here. I know it's a special sort of hell to get up this early, but I think you all know that Fury wants us at SHIELD by shit o' clock, so you haven't got an option this time."

Rose sat open in astonishment, her eyelids sticking as she blinked in confused bewilderment at the sudden waking.

"Nice manners, Stark!" Natasha bellowed, her voice audible from the floor below. The Doctor grinned at Rose, who groaned and flopped back against the pillows, hair bouncing around her sleep-flushed face.

"Seriously?" she mumbled. "What time is it, even?"

"Late enough, sleepyhead!" he responded cheerfully, hopping onto the floor and stretching his arms high above his head. Energy coursed through his muscles, and he pranced over to the closest that Pepper had pointed out while they were being shown to their level. She had done a bit of shopping a few hours beforehand, she had explained with a wry smile, and hoped that everything would fit him alright.

As he saw now, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts noticed clothing much more acutely than he ever would have suspected. He was currently confronted with a number of pairs of dark trousers, variously shaded light shirts, and—to his utter glee—a whole row of rainbow-hued bowties.

"Rose!" he exclaimed in delight, hooking an emerald-green one around his fingers and whirling around with it held high. "Look what they've gotten me!"

"A bowtie?" she asked drowsily, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. "Are those your new thing, then?"

"Yes—well—hardly new," he admitted, bringing it up to his collar. He hadn't been able to change out of his outfit the night before, and it was more than satisfying now to be able to rifle through the clean clothes packed into the closet, finally removing a pale blue shirt and light violet bowtie and draping a pair of trousers over his arm. "Make sure you get out of bed, lazy! This thing isn't going to wait for us!" he called half-over his shoulder as he hurried across the room to the bathroom door, shouldering it open and shut against Rose's half-exhausted laughter.

He emerged a few minutes later to find her zipping up a leather jacket also glistening with newness, over a black shirt and artistically scuffed jeans. It was rather adorable, he thought, for her to be all dressed up with no makeup and completely wild hair, though she started towards the bathroom as soon as he left it, clearly keen on correcting just that.

"They really must have a lot of money, to be able to afford all this," she mused, looking him up and down with a slight grin.

"It's a bit too much, really, don't you think?" He exaggerated a shudder, spinning slightly in place as he gestured to the fresh fabric dressing his own body. "There's something about new clothes—they never feel quite right until they've been worn a good three or four times, don't you think?"

"Obviously," she agreed, reaching out to cuff his shoulder playfully as she walked past. "I'll see you at breakfast, then?"

"I can wait," he started, but was cut off by the speakers coming to life again, Tony now sounding more awake but also more irritated.

"Alright, if a certain alien and his pretty little companion could get down here right about now, it's been a quarter hour since I called and there are these lovely pancakes on the table—"

"There are pancakes?" Rose asked from just inside the bathroom, seeming to perk up visibly.

"—So if you have any interest at all in not confronting Nick Fury on an empty stomach, I'd suggest you really make your way for the main floor about now."

"I'm gone," the Doctor announced, lifting his hand in a wave. "I'll save you a place, alright?"

"Whatever you want," Rose laughed, shaking her head. He beamed and scampered over to the elevator, the doors of which slid open smoothly with the help of an invisible motion sensor.

Despite Tony's passive threats, there were indeed still copious helpings of steaming pancakes on the glossy table by the time the Doctor made his way downstairs, backed by plates of bacon and pitchers of orange juice as well as various other breakfast-type items of cuisine. Sherlock was scowling at the food as though it had personally offended him, while Thor devoured it all too eagerly, Clint and Natasha picked away from two chairs shoved rather close together, and Dean seemed barely able to breathe through the rain of pancakes that he was rapidly shoving into his mouth.

"These," the hunter managed to get out through a particularly massive mouthful, "are freaking delicious."

"Trust me, I know." Tony flashed him a grin, sitting back from his own plate and glancing towards Steve across the table. The blonde soldier was eating at a purposefully measured pace, seeming as if he didn't want it to be visible how much he was enjoying it.

The Doctor brought his hands together in delighted anticipation, his eyes settling on an empty chair, which he moved towards immediately. He was centimeters away from sitting down when a sudden noise ripped through the air—a high-pitched klaxon that nearly caused Dean to fall out of his chair in astonishment. Natasha stood up abruptly, her chair tipping backwards, and Bruce's knuckles tightened almost imperceptibly around his fork, an alarmingly swift movement.

"What the hell is that?" Dean demanded as the piercing wail shifted up and down through the air. Tony, wincing visibly, clapped one hand over his ear and waved the other through the air, as though visibly indicating that the noise stop.

"JARVIS!" he shouted over the siren. "Shut that thing off!"

Obediently, the sound went silent, and, for a moment, the Doctor's ears buzzed with the emptiness, backed only by the harsh double pulse of his two hearts. Then a fragmented voice echoed through the speakers, clearly distressed.

"Sir—I—overridden—Director—"

The cool tones then spluttered into nothing at all, followed by a harsh burst of static. Everyone around the table had now frozen completely, their eyes fixated on Tony, who in turn had his head tilted around towards the wall, presumably the site of the invisible speakers. His lips were moving swiftly, framing words that were impossible to decipher. The Doctor's own head spun with alarm and confusion—what could possibly be going on? Was there some sort of danger? The rest of New York, visible through the wide window that curved around this level like all of the others, seemed to be experiencing as peaceful a morning as ever—though, of course, he had learned over the decades not to judge things by their appearance, especially when it came to danger levels.

The static then dulled, and Nick Fury's heavy tones echoed through the building, magnified to far above what the other, presumably automated voice's had.

"Avengers, report in immediately. SHIELD has made a match on an image of our subject—he is currently located just outside of London, we need a team to head in immediately."

"Son of a…" Tony growled under his breath. "Are you serious? We're _eating breakfast_, for God's sake!"

Apparently, unlike the robotic JARVIS, Fury couldn't hear Tony's voice through the speakers. "Repeat, Avengers report in," he insisted, and then silence completely consumed them, followed moments later by the rather meek tones of an apparently confused JARVIS.

"My apologies, sir… it seems that I have just been overridden…"

"Yeah, tell me something I don't know." He huffed a sigh. "Alright, everyone get up, we're going to SHIELD."

"Wait," Natasha interrupted, lifting a hand. She reached into a pocket of her jacket and pulled out what looked like a touchscreen mobile phone, which she proceeded to frown at intently. "He's sent me something—a location. You lot go to SHIELD, I'm going to see if I can catch our creature."

"No, you're not," Clint interrupted. "Not alone."

She rolled her eyes minutely but didn't object. The Doctor's teeth unwillingly worried his lip—he knew what would happen if Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff were the first off to go investigate. There was little to no doubt that they wouldn't hesitate to hurt it, and he couldn't just stand by and let that happen—if SHIELD expected as much, then they had picked the wrong alien for the job.

"I'll go in, too," he spoke up, with a last, rather regretful look at the still-warm pancakes waiting in front of the seat he'd never gotten a chance to take.

"Well, you can't just all go and expect us to miss the fun," Dean interjected, standing up and glancing over at Cas, who nodded and copied his movement. With a grin, he inclined his head towards the Doctor before turning back to Clint and Natasha.

"So half the team is going against Fury's orders?" Bruce clarified with his eyebrows raised slightly.

"Not against them, no." Natasha shook her head, her tone just a bit too light. "He probably sent me the location for a reason. It'll be easy."

"You don't exactly have a way to get to England," Steve commented dryly. The Doctor opened his mouth to volunteer the TARDIS, before remembering that he was currently stranded without the time machine—it was somewhere in the vortex, housing a Master who hopefully wouldn't grow particularly irritated at his sudden abandonment.

"We have an angel," Natasha countered, shrugging. She turned to Castiel with an eyebrow raised. "You won't mind, will you? Can you take all of us?"

"One at a time, yes. My health has vastly improved since the last time I associated with you," he promised.

"That's settled, then. Stark, you and the rest go tell Fury where we are. We can't let this opportunity pass by."

He scowled, apparently ready to protest, but not before Natasha grasped Clint's hand and paced over to Cas. "Let's go," she murmured, tilting the screen of her phone up so that he could see the address. The angel glanced over to Dean with wide blue eyes, almost as if seeking permission to obey her, and a light nod was returned. He lifted a hand to Natasha's shoulder, and a second later they were gone—not with any sort of flash, but instead simply winking out of existence. The Doctor barely had time to grin in delight at the absurd power before Cas was back, this time reaching out for Dean.

"Fine, then," Tony scowled, clearly a bit peeved.

Cas extended a hand towards the Doctor, who was just about to take it when he suddenly remembered Rose—Rose, who hadn't even come downstairs yet. "Oh—don't forget about Rose," he put in hurriedly. "Make sure she knows what's going on, gets to SHIELD—"

"Chances are that she heard Fury just as clearly as we did." Sherlock, who had been silent nearly the whole time, suddenly saw it fit to through in a half-sarcastic comment, to which the Doctor whacked himself lightly on the forehead with the heel of his hand.

"Right, right, yes, of course." Apparently he was worrying an absurd amount about Rose—enough so, in any case, for his usual clear thought processes to be muddled. He flashed a quick half-smile in the direction of a very unimpressed Sherlock, then took Cas's hand, which was firm and surprisingly warm. There was a brief twist in his stomach and a flare of light behind his eyes, along with the sensation of dropping a very long ways, metaphysical wind rushing past his ears and pressing in on him—then he found himself stumbling forward on a stretch of pavement, looking out with wide eyes onto what looked like a misty English street, lined by a number of verdant gardens and quiet, modest houses.

"Brilliant," he breathed, turning around to see Dean scowling distastefully and Cas calmly brushing off his coat sleeve. Clint and Natasha, as he realized moments later, were nowhere in sight, and he frowned a bit, looking quickly up and down the abandoned street to make sure he wasn't missing anything.

"Where are the other two, then?" he inquired, a frown deepening his forehead. Cas drew in a quick breath, pacing forwards past him and tilting his head to the side, eyes narrowing.

"They must have gone on without us," the angel decided. "To the house that the creature is meant to be in, perhaps."

"And which one is that?" Dean demanded.

"This one—here." Cas paused, his hand gesturing to the one directly beside them. It looked just as innocent as the rest, with white walls and a shingled roof—there were even a few halfhearted flowerboxes perched on the dusty windowsills. A bit depressing, but nothing more alarming than that.

"Fascinating," the Doctor murmured, stepping forwards onto the stone path that wove its way along the pale, dew-stained grass. It was almost eerily silent, as if the endlessly winding houses had no occupants at all, but he didn't say anything about it, just followed the path up to the door. His fingers settled on the morning-chilled knob, which turned willingly at his touch. It opened to reveal a short hall, backed by a staircase on one side and a door-punctured wall on the other. Said door was open, swaying back and forth slightly.

The silence really was becoming unnerving. Leaving Dean and Cas to watch on behind him, the Doctor carefully moved forwards, setting one foot in front of the other. His fingers trailed along the wall, and every particle of his being was sharp and alert—so that the distinct sound of shattering glass, when it finally came, was enough to propel him forwards, dashing around the corner and into what seemed to be a kitchen.

Natasha stood with her gun cocked and arm extended, the weapon pointed straight at the chest of an unfamiliar, dark-haired man, whose pale grey eyes were alight with horror. A ceramic plate lay in pieces at his feet, and Clint held his arms tight behind his back, face impenetrable.

"Now," Natasha murmured silkily, tilting her chin back. "Why don't you tell us who the hell you are, and why you saw it fit to go on a murder spree in Cardiff?"


	6. Interrogation

**Thanks to **_mudkipz, Byrneshadow, and Natalie Nallareet_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER VI. **_Interrogation_

"Hold on, now!" the Doctor exclaimed, instinctively stepping towards the blank-faced man with his hands raised in Natasha's direction. "There's no need to be so violent—"

"Doctor, if you don't mind," she muttered, "this is the man we've been after, and it's our job to subdue him in every way possible. You'd do yourself well to get out of the way, now."

"I'm sure there's a much more peaceful way that we can go about this," the Doctor replied, casting what he hoped was a reassuring glance in the direction of their captive, who only swallowed and stared on in mute disbelief. "One that… doesn't involve bullets, maybe?"

"Fury made it very clear how dangerous this man is!" Clint interrupted in a sharp bark. "We can't risk anything."

"Well, then, at least—let's be a _bit _more allowing, say—"

He was interrupted by the entrance of Cas and Dean, who he turned around to catch sight of immediately. The angel's brow was furrowed, his eyes lit intently upon the dark-haired man, who was now trembling slightly, while Dean's expression was simply bewildered.

"What the hell is going on?" the hunter demanded, looking back and forth between all of them. Natasha's jaw tightens in frustration, but she keeps the gun pointed very precisely at her victim's forehead.

Rather than answering Dean, the Doctor turned back to the assassins, trying desperately to convey his earnestness. "Just listen up for a second, would you? We can question him, nothing more than that. We don't even know if this is our man, do we? Did Fury send pictures?"

"He sent a location," Natasha shot back, but her tone was far less resolute after his comment.

"Well, then, we don't even know if this is who we're looking for. The real killer, now, he could be anywhere in this house—even gone by now, while we have this innocent—"

"Fine." Natasha slowly lowered her arm, but she kept her vivid green eyes fixated on the figure of her prisoner, bearing an uncanny resemblance to a hunting cat. "Doctor, Winchester, Castiel. Go search the rest of the house. Agent Barton and I will stay here and get what we can out of this man."

"Well…" the Doctor began, searching for a reason to stay in the room—he absolutely didn't trust these two alone with the unnamed, still-wordless man that he was trying to protect, and yet he really had worked himself into this one. There was no excuse to stay.

"Well, fine," he agreed a bit uncertainly, then nodded to Dean and Cas. "We'll give you ten minutes, how's that?"

"Not enough," Clint grumbled.

The Doctor only let out a cheery "Can't hear you!," the door shutting behind him as he escorted the still-confused Dean and Cas from the room.

* * *

"My name is Tom Jackman," were the first words out of the tousle-headed man's mouth. He was forcibly stationed in a plastic chair that had been conveniently situated in the kitchen, his knuckles white where his hands lay on his lap and his head slightly ducked, pale eyes barely visible.

Natasha quickly categorized his voice as strongly Irish, and swiftly searched her memory for anything to do with his name—_Jackman, _however, came up seemingly blank. Not from a strain of criminals, blood-bound or gang-affiliated, then. Not very inhuman-sounding, either; at least not compared to Loki, Lucifer, or the Master. It was a very average name, in fact, enough so that the idea of it being a pseudonym drifted to the front of her mind.

"And does anyone else live with you, Jackman, or are you on your own?" she questioned delicately, making sure to keep her tone neutral—she'd had her experience with interrogation, and knew that revealing her response to any new information would be incredibly unwise.

"I—I don't live here," he replied, raising his chin slowly to lock eyes with her. She crossed her arms—the gun now sitting on the counter beside her—fighting the urge to shiver. There really was something alarming about his irises, the light gray of rain-stained clouds, almost ghostly. Still, though, nothing about them implied him to be superhuman. "I just found myself in these parts… had a bit of a… hard night, next thing I knew, I was down here, near London. Luckily I had a bit of knowledge of the area, found my way to this house—it belongs to an old friend of mine, but he wasn't home, I figured he wouldn't mind all that much if I were to stop in and just get something to eat before catching a train back home." He inclined his head slightly towards the trash bin, which now held the sharp fragments of the plate that they'd caught him with.

Clint snorted slightly. "That's breaking and entering, we could get you arrested even if you aren't the man we're looking for."

"You avoided the question," Natasha cut in. "Who do you live with? Do you have a family? A Mrs. Jackman?"

"I—I have a wife," he finally admitted. His reluctance to voice the words didn't escape her at all. "Claire. And two boys."

He didn't show a single sign of lying. Natasha nodded slowly, not allowing herself to warm up, even though she was beginning to grow a bit more comfortable, and rather unsettled all the same. If this Tom Jackman wasn't the man they were looking for, then perhaps he really was innocent. Maybe the Doctor had been right—but, no, she shouldn't give up so fast. He had already provided slightly dodgy information, which she latched onto now.

"You said that a bad night led you down here. Did it bring you by Wales, in any case? Or if I were to go and ask your wife Claire, would she tell me that you've spent any time in Cardiff as of late?"

"Cardiff?" he repeated, frowning slightly. "No—no, why?"

Before she could reply, the door opened to reveal the Doctor, his face fixed into a grim mask and his eyes dark with purpose.

"That was _not _ten minutes," she began in an irritated snarl, but he shook his head, gesturing that she come out.

"There's a… new development," he offered by way of explanation.

She huffed, glancing towards Clint. "Keep going," she instructed, tilting her head towards Jackman, then followed the Doctor out.

"What is it?" she demanded in a loud whisper, as soon as they were out of hearing distance from Clint and Jackman. "If you couldn't tell, Doctor, I was in the middle of a—"

"Fury texted Dean. He and Cas are still upstairs, but he suggested I show it to you—it said in the message that Fury tried to get to you, but your communicator was off—"

"Yes, alright, what _was _it?" she demanded, her curiosity piqued. After a brief swallow, he withdrew a slim cell phone from his trousers pocket, flipping it open to display a grainy image on its small screen.

"This is the creature that Torchwood warned SHIELD about," he explained in an undertone.

She frowned slightly, bringing the image into focus. It was pixelated, but clear enough to communicate what she knew it had to—the man staring out at her from the screen was undoubtedly Tom Jackman, or, if not, blindingly similar to him. And yet there were a few differences, she noticed slowly—a more peaked hairline, darker eyes, and, most alarmingly of all, a wide, lazy cat's grin, one which she could barely imagine on the somber-faced Jackman in the kitchen.

"It couldn't be anyone else," she mused, shaking her head slightly. "Nearly identical…"

"_Nearly _identical," the Doctor repeated, a bit of triumph finally working its way into his voice. "But not quite, is it?"

"…Not quite," she admitted. "Regardless, it's too much of a similarity to pass by. And you should hear what he has to say, Doctor, even you'd have to admit it's a bit suspicious—"

"Maybe it is," the Doctor agreed, shrugging slightly and pocketing the phone again. He rubbed his hands together swiftly, fingers running over each other as a tentative smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "If you'd care to let me have a go with him, I could hear it for myself…"

She deliberated for a second, then shrugged. "Fine, go on. You'll have to get Clint out, though." Slightly disheartened by her possible mistake, she was far more willing to be a bit less procedural about it all, and one could never be sure, after all—perhaps the Doctor had some skills in gentler interrogation, himself.

* * *

The Doctor, as it was, did not know the first thing about interrogation.

"So," he began, sitting down in a chair across from Jackman and crossing his legs good-naturedly. "I suppose you won't tell me anything you do know? Got any twin brothers, by any chance?"

"I… have twin boys…" His expression grew slightly stormier. "My sons. But no siblings of my own… I was adopted."

"Adopted?" the Doctor repeated, somewhat weakly, as the meaning behind Jackman's words hit him. Adopted. Of course. So he could, theoretically, have a twin brother—anywhere on Earth, really. Presumably somewhat near Cardiff, but in this century, it was rather remarkable how fast people could travel within a couple of days. His stomach sank slowly, and he bit his bottom lip in confusion. There was probably still some way that Jackman could prove useful, he reminded himself desperately—there was no need to abandon him immediately.

"Alright, well, are you entirely sure you don't remember any siblings? Because, well, they can be… rather ingrained into your mind, lifelong companion and all that—well, except for when they don't actually last for a lifetime—"

"Listen, er, Doctor," Jackman started up tiredly—presumably, the Time Lord supposed, he had heard his name from Natasha—"I don't know what's going on with you and your friends, or what you want. But I have a wife at home, and she's heard nothing from me for the past couple of days. I need to get back to her as soon as possible—would you mind letting me go?"

"Last couple of days?" the Doctor latched on, paying little regard to the actual words spoken by Jackman. It wasn't, of course, that he didn't pity him—on the contrary, he absolutely did, but he couldn't let their most valuable chance at answers get away so fast. "Where have you been all that time, then?"

"Bad night, like I told the other two." His lip curled. "I don't remember much."

"Oh, yes. Well. You wouldn't," the Doctor supposed awkwardly. Jackman's slim, rounded eyebrows lifted slightly, and the Doctor let out a slight laugh, shaking his head. "Well. I suppose… if you're sure you can't remember anything…"

It was ridiculous, of course, how lax he was being. That was painstakingly clear even to him, as he fired off the so-called questions. And yet, what Rose had said—her warnings of an insane, amazingly powerful murderer… they just didn't feel right, here. This man was slim, physically weak enough to be brought down by Clint and Natasha (which could still be very strong indeed, but not enough so to escape Torchwood single-handedly), and… there was just something about his eyes and his general look that seemed innocent. The Doctor knew this was the wrong man, really, and yet the physical resemblance really was unnerving enough for persistence.

Still. Adopted. That could explain everything. With that in mind, he sighed and started out of the room. "I suppose that's all I have, then—just let me make sure that Dean and Cas don't want to take a shot."

* * *

Dean and Cas did want to take a shot.

"Listen up, pal," the hunter growled, crouching down so that he could be eye-to-eye with the still-seated Jackman. "I don't know what the hell you are, or what shit you fed to the other three, or why you feel the need to go on murder sprees and then deny it two days later. But we know that it's you. It's obvious. And the best thing you can do for yourself at this point is just to fess up, get everything out in the open, and work out the kinks from there."

Rather pleased with his speech, he sat back, tossing a glance towards Cas, who was frowning, his hands deep in his pockets and his back slightly hunched with the intensity of his concentration.

Jackman sighed, long and deep, and tilted his head to the side slightly. When he spoke, his words were dark, strong—clearly, he had had enough of being pushed around by strangers.

"I don't know who you are or what you want, but I can piece together the fact that you're looking for a killer, and that killer is not me." His head then dropped slightly, and his next words were weary, almost pleading. "I've never murdered anyone in my life, understand? I want to get home to my wife and my children. I've said that enough now that one might expect it to make an impact."

"Oh, hold the sass," Dean muttered, then sidled up to Cas, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Is he telling the truth?"

"It is… difficult to tell," Castiel replied, his voice genuinely confused. "His mind is unclear, somehow. Not necessarily inhuman, and yet… he has a powerful brain, and it's resisting my attempts to scan it."

Dean made sure to shoot the most intimidating glare he could muster in Jackman's direction. The only reply was a slight sigh and shifting of the shoulders. "Nothing at all? You sure?"

"I am sorry, Dean, but—"

"No, no, it's fine." He supposed he'd have to resort to the crudest method of drawing out truths that he knew—other, of course, than the more physical forms of persuasion, which he was sure everyone wouldn't approve of in this situation, himself passionately included. "Alright, then." He paced towards Jackman, looking down at him this time, and near-shouted the next words.

"We are _not _going to let you go, understand?"

The response was barely a flinch, which only frustrated him enough to go on. "I don't care what the others are convinced of, I _know _that you've got something going on. And I'm not going to give up on you. You killed those people. It was your face, and Natasha told me—you don't even know where you've been over the past few days, is that it? Bullshit. It's a _bullshit _alibi, hell, it's not even one!" He leaned even closer, to the point where his eyes were mere centimeters away from Jackman's. "Last time I was stuck with this organization that's after you, I got my _brother _killed. He was all I had, understand? And now all I've got is _him_." He tilted his head slightly backwards, indicating Cas's still, now straight-backed form. "And I am sure as hell not going to lose him. So all I want to do is get done what I have to and get out. And you're my ticket to doing that. Don't think for one second that we're done with you. Because we'll be back, just as soon as I get them to see what's what." His voice had been growing steadily softer, but he shoved it into a shout for his last words. "So you'd better _watch your back!" _

The door burst open at that, and he heard Natasha's voice over the deafening thrum of his own heartbeat—"Dean." He didn't turn, though, because his stomach was writhing and his lungs were racing, and he wasn't about to turn away. His green eyes were steadily locked with Jackman's gray ones, and, just for this moment, all of his anger, shoved away for so long after Sam's death, pushed and strained at the barriers he'd so carefully constructed around it, ready to burst forth at a second's notice. His teeth were clenched so tight that he half-expected them to crack under the strain, and he was completely unblinking, to the point where his eyes began to water.

"I am _not,_" he repeated, hoarsely, barely even talking to Jackman anymore, "losing Cas like I lost Sam."

"Dean." This time, it was Castiel who spoke, reaching forward to secure a warm hand over Dean's alarmingly tense shoulder and pulling back gently. "Let him go."

Dean looked down, somewhat wonderingly, to see that his fingers were cinched tight around Jackman's collar, knuckles shining white. He exhaled, painfully, and forced himself to let go, shaking his numb hand out soundlessly.

"You're going to be under surveillance," he told Jackman hollowly. "So don't try to pull any other shit."

He could feel the others' eyes on him—all of them; a brief glance behind him revealed that Clint, Natasha, and the Doctor were standing in the doorway, watching him silently. All three of their expressions were impenetrable, almost grim. He inhaled sharply and shook Cas's hand off with a sharp, jerking movement, ignoring the surprised, almost hurt look on the angel's face out of the corner of his eye as he whipped around and stalked out of the room, shoving impolitely between Clint and Natasha and not giving a shit.

"He's not going to say anything," he said shortly, pausing in the doorway. He stared at the floor for a long instance, breathing heavily, then shook his head and strode out the door, leaving the rest in stunned silence behind him.


	7. Return

**A/N** _I've started writing this a bit slower to make sure I'm less blocked, which means that I may have a week or two when I don't update in the near future. This is just a possibility, though, so don't worry._

**Thanks to **_Byrneshadow, mudkipz, Idiosyncrasy, RedbirdJones, and Guest_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER VII. **_Return_

"Do you think you can transport us to SHIELD, as well?" Natasha questioned of Castiel as soon as they were all outside. Dean stood several yards away from the rest of them, his arms crossed tight over his chest and his breath misting in the cool morning air, but none of them approached for the time being—they didn't have to; and, besides, he needed the meager space that he could get for the time being.

"I could," Castiel murmured. His large, dark eyes were fixated on Dean, not so much as blinking as he spoke steadily. "It would be easier for me, however, than for you. Too much flying can have a… taxing effect on humans."

"It's fine," Natasha replied easily, and felt Clint nod behind her.

"What about non-humans?" the Doctor queried, sounding much more serious than usual.

"You are already adjusted to traveling through the time vortex on a regular basis. It shouldn't be harmful to you in the least, Doctor, though perhaps some caution should be exercised anyways."

"Eh, it'll work," he shrugged. "What's the alternative? Waiting six hours for a helicopter?"

"At least," the angel agreed.

"Right, I'm in for the flying."

"If it isn't a problem, I believe I should take Dean first, alone," Castiel half-whispered, his voice low and rasping. "It will be better for him if he's not separated from others for any long period of time… it's in isolation that he tends to… boil over."

"Not a problem," the Doctor agreed readily.

"Absolutely," Natasha seconded. "Whatever's best for him."

Taking her words as a cue, Cas strode along the sidewalk towards Dean, then reached out a tentative hand towards him. The hunter reflexively flinched away, a scowl visible even in distant profile, but then Castiel's lips moved, framing indistinct words, and the tension in the leather-coated shoulders slowly dissipated, finalizing itself in a quick sigh of acquiesce and an extended hand. Moments later, the two of them were gone.

"…He may be dangerous," Natasha commented after a few seconds, folding her arms and frowning after the mist-laced air where the hunter and the angel had disappeared. "If he really has that much anger bottled up inside of him…"

"Oh, now, it wasn't _that _bad," the Doctor counted, though the barely-detectable tremor in his voice made it all too clear that he didn't believe his own words. "Just a bit… fed up, like all of us are with the whole wild goose chase, I'm sure."

"You saw him, Doctor." She didn't waver—there was no use, after all, in denial. "That tension, that… power, it's… a lot more than frustration. Not that he can really be blamed for it, I suppose. The death of his brother took a much larger toll than we ever expected—and we were stupid _not _to expect it, really. And everything he said… it is true, that Castiel is all he has left now."

The Doctor made a small, noncommittal noise, his head ducking slightly. Natasha's brows sunk ever so slightly in careful consideration—he, too, had a dark past, probably more so than she knew. Fury had mentioned a couple of times that the Time Lord had played a large role in some ancient war, far before the age of humans or even their planet. And yet it was endlessly hard to believe, when actually confronted with the bright, spirited alien's young form, that such a seemingly innocent creature could be responsible for so much.

People, really, were all absurdly layered—herself included, Natasha admitted grudgingly, rewarded with a small twist of her stomach. To judge them on as much would be absurdly hypocritical, so she kept any such thoughts to herself, her lips pressed tightly together, bottling up any words inside until Cas appeared again, his eyes landing on the Doctor as soon as he materialized before them.

"Doctor, I'll take you next," he clarified.

"How's Fury?" Natasha checked, curious as to what the SHIELD director had thought of their impulsive and somewhat order-defying departure to England—and, admittedly, searching quickly for new information that could take her off of the subject of Dean.

"…A bit disgruntled," Cas admitted, taking a few moments to select the proper words from his surely exhaustive vocabulary. "But nothing beyond that. The news of Tom Jackman is certainly intriguing to him, if not rewarding. He should be telling the rest of the team what happened right now."

"Good, good." The Doctor placidly extended one of his hands. "No time to waste, then."

Castiel accepted the gesture, his rough fingers closing around the Doctor's smooth, thin ones, and then they were gone, too, leaving only Clint and Natasha to stand on the desolate street.

She wondered briefly whether Tom Jackman was watching from his window, curious as to the behavior of the intrusive strangers—whether, indeed, he had seen their far-from-natural departure. With this thought suddenly burning in her mind, she glanced around, scanning the windows of the house. They seemed bare enough, though, and she consoled herself with the idea that he had instead chosen to bury himself as deep in as possible, not wanting any farther association with them.

"Nat, you okay?" Clint questioned, his hand moving slightly towards her at the nervous movement.

"It's just… Jackman," she offered by way of explanation, sweeping her eyes back to the street once she was assured she hadn't seen anything. She didn't face Clint, but instead squinted down into the sea of dark forms that made up distant houses, ignoring the crisp breeze that forced a few gingery strands of hair into her face. "We're becoming lazy… he might have seen Castiel's… method of transportation."

"Doubt it," was the immediate reply. "He was jumpy—even if he tried to act calm, there was something about him. Probably not the type to risk his luck by hanging around and watching us after we left—it was pretty damn clear that he just wanted us _out _of there, as soon as possible."

"I suppose so." She suppressed a shiver, knowing what action Clint would take if he thought her to be cold and unwilling to accept as much at the time. "Do you think that he really was innocent?"

"Everything seems to point to it," the archer confessed. "Really, what do we have against him? Similar looks to our killer. Not even identical—"

_"Practically _identical," she cut across. The similarity really had been astounding—the image very easily could have been of the same man, perhaps with a few alterations that would be all too easy to feign with the use of makeup.

"Right, but then there's the adoption thing. We've honestly got nothing against him."

"I suppose." She let a sigh escape her lips, watching as the warmth of her breath coalesced into a thin series of silvery puffs in the frozen air. "It's difficult, I suppose. To give up our only lead."

"We've both been through a hell of a lot worse than this," was his almost puzzled reply.

"Not with this many people. It's just… a team like this. It feels… almost too complex to function, you know? There are so many of us, and so contrasting… it may be the most powerful thing that Fury could come up with, but that's what we are. Just raw power, really. There's no _stability—_there's no reason for loyalty to each other, aside from shared experiences, and those can't always be relied on. I suppose it's just—" She hesitated for a second at the pure absurdity of it, of spilling out all her thoughts and doubts to her coworker in broad daylight, in the center of an empty English street barely past dawn. "I'm not used to it. The team thing. Even after Loki, and his second time, too—I work best alone."

"I think almost all of us do," Clint replied dryly. "Sometimes all we need is raw force, though."

"Not for something like this!" Her doubts began to rise up all at once, until they were all she could think of, and even as she tried to bite them back, they relentlessly insisted on pouring themselves into the air, louder and clearer than she intended them to be. "We're not fighting an army, here! We're soldiers, and that's not what this job needs. He's doing it all wrong, but who is there to tell him?"

"Best not plot any sort of rebellion against SHIELD," he shot back teasingly, and she huffed in frustration, brushing aside his attempt at humor. Despite his acute intelligence, Clint Barton did have a distinct tendency to entirely miss the point of things. Before she had the time to criticize him for it, though, she was interrupted by the appearance of Castiel, flitting into existence on the sidewalk square beside her.

"I believe I can take both of you at once, if it isn't a problem," he informed them, his gaze flitting from one to the other.

"Not in the least," Clint declared.

Nodding, Natasha held her hand out, and the angel grasped it moments later. There was one second of blinding light and pressure, rushing by her from all sides, erasing her surroundings and filling her ears with an intense roar, then her feet were settling onto solid ground again.

She blinked and looked around. They were back in SHIELD—in fact, in the same room where they had first convened. Fury stood at the front once more, and everyone else was scattered about in chairs, draped across them in poses that expressed varying degrees of frustration and exhaustion. Dean was surrounded by a clear space of empty seats, and looked rather as if he wanted it to stay that way, but Natasha didn't miss how Castiel remedied his isolation immediately, a gesture which softened Dean's brow ever so slightly.

"Finally," Fury growled, turning around to face them again with a rustle of dark fabric. "And what the hell kind of time do you call this?"

"Enough time to learn something new and quite possibly important," Natasha shot back immediately. Her slight irritation with Fury's controlling air caused her to not hesitate before marching up to the front of the room, turning on her heel to face the room. The faces around her sharpened, their attention drawn to her presence.

"I've already explained everything that you and your _team _discovered, Agent Romanoff," Fury began.

"I'll review it, then, just to make sure we're all on the same page," she replied primly, making sure not to let her tone grow overly rebellious. His single eye narrowed, but he made no farther move to stop her, and her next words were louder, amplified so that the entire assembly could hear.

"The creature that we're pursuing seems to have an identical twin," she began. A few rustles were prompted by this, as well as a confused murmur or two, but nothing spoken outright. "Tom Jackman."

"Don't assume that so fast," Fury cut in. Natasha opened her mouth in confusion, but he went on over her. "After Castiel and Winchester initially returned with the news, I ran a check through the rest of SHIELD. No other face duplicates have been spotted, and nearly forty hours have passed since the initial message from Torchwood. If there was another man on Earth with that creature's face, then our cameras would have caught him by now."

That was new. Natasha went entirely silent for a long moment, and the room was noiseless save the low buzz of the lights hanging far above their heads. Then, slowly and haltingly, Clint began to speak, his eyes cast towards the ceiling as his ideas formed audibly.

"Maybe there isn't another one on Earth. It wouldn't be the first time we've dealt with aliens, would it?"

Thor's features seemed to tighten slightly, as did the Doctor's, both clearly not missing the passing reference to their own species. Fury contemplated the idea, his lips pressed tightly together, then moved to agree.

"It's a possibility—"

"But he _must _be related to Jackman," Natasha interrupted insistently. "There's no other explanation for the resemblance—it's blinding, really. And that man was definitely human."

"Human, indeed," the Doctor agreed, and Castiel made a small noise of positivity, as well.

Fury's brow creased once more. "Then it's impossible. We have access to every camera—the only remotely plausible way he could be hiding is if he's in some underground cavern, and we can all agree that something like that is highly improbable, to say the least."

"He's not underground," Sherlock growled, voicing his clearly active thoughts for the first time. His voice, low and strong, carried throughout the room with an ease that even Fury's didn't capture. "Tom Jackman and Torchwood's killer must be the same person."

"Then how the hell are they _different _people?" Dean demanded. His tone, Natasha noticed, was still rawer and rougher than usual, though he seemed to at least have tamed the fire blazing behind his moss-green eyes.

"Multiple personality disorder?" the detective suggested idly. "The easiest explanation, of course—there are several others that come to mind."

"List them!" the hunter spat, clearly disbelieving.

"Demon possession, for one." Sherlock couldn't have been more visibly unimpressed by the anger of the man who had stood to confront him, held back from pacing over to glare in his face only by the hand of the angel placed silently on the small of his back, a wordless attempt at placation that, surprisingly, seemed to work. "Or several other types of vessel use. Drugs. He could also, of course, just be a stunningly good actor." His tone lingered on the brink of sarcasm, not quite tipping into it but carrying just enough to come off as annoying.

"All possibilities worth consideration," Fury cut in before Dean could verbally retaliate. Seething, the hunter slowly lowered back into his own chair, leaning forward and gripping his knees hard enough for his knuckles to shine white, visible even to Natasha, who stood several rows away. "And none of which are important right now. Before we make another move on Jackman, there's something that I need to do."

Natasha stepped away slightly, allowing Fury more of the crowd's attention, and raising a delicate eyebrow in the process. She had no idea what he could be talking about this time, but she was confident enough from his tone that she wasn't going to be much of a fan of whatever topic he was moving onto.

"Half the team's departure, amongst other things," the Director continued, "has made me painfully aware that—well, that perhaps _team _isn't the right word to be using."

This definitely didn't sound good. Natasha's opinion, it seemed, was shared by the majority of the other Avengers, as well—Tony managed to simultaneously wince and roll his eyes, while Sherlock pressed his lips together to an impossibly thin line, Bruce's eyes widened in rather upset disbelief, and Rose tightened her jaw slightly.

"Yes, yes, I can see perfectly well that you're all unspeakably repulsed by what I'm going to say," he growled, more than a bit exasperated. "I can't say I care, though. So I'm splitting you into groups of two, and you're going to work together, to see if you can build a bit of… well, let's treat you like the high school kids that you so often seem to be, and say _team spirit." _

"You're fucking kidding me," Dean cut in, and Natasha wondered if he was even aware of the instinctive way that he leaned in towards Castiel, like a schoolgirl reaching for her best friend when the teacher issued the classic "partner up" command. Apparently the subconscious motion didn't pass under Fury's radar, either, because he went on to elaborate in a way that elicited a visible scowl in Natasha, who'd been hoping to snag Clint for a partner for whatever bizarre training Fury had decided to give them.

"Of course, I'll make sure you're paired with someone you're _unfamiliar _with, who will help you to expand on your talents rather than dumb them down." Before anyone could protest, he began ticking off names in pairs, as if he had them memorized from some previous list—which, Natasha realized with a sinking stomach, he very well could.

"Banner and Holmes, you two are on research. Come up with anything you can about this creature, and who or what it could be."

The two dark-haired men both looked rather relieved, though the strain was clear in Bruce's expression—he was not, it would seem, particularly looking forward to spending the day in the company of the rudest and bluntest member of the team, preferable though it may be to some of the alternatives.

"Thor and Tyler, there's a gymnasium built that I'll show you to, which should test both of your powers. It's specially reinforced, and should be able to withstand supernatural strengths. Compare Asgardian ability to vortex controlling—I want to see how you can combine your forces to create a more powerful product."

Thor seemed more alarmed than Rose, who at least attempted to pull on a slight smile in his direction. The Asgardian was simply confused-looking, as though he couldn't understand what Fury was attempting to achieve—neither, honestly, could Natasha; such a thought was only reinforced when the Director's next words put her in her own pair.

"Romanoff and Winchester, see if you've anything to offer each other in the physical ability department. SHIELD has a few guns for you to test out, as well."

"Hold up," Dean began, his eyes widening in disbelief. Natasha was all too willing to join his protests, but Fury allowed no time for her, instead ticking off the rest.

"Rogers and Watson, the same for you. Doctor and Barton, you two are going to be more tactical—discuss ideas, plans of attack based on what you know about this creature. Try to balance necessary violence with peacekeeping wherever possible. Stark and Castiel, find ways to work with the combination of electric power and angel Grace. There should be enough empty rooms throughout this place for you all to work with enough space to remain undisturbed. Am I clear?"

"What the hell is the _point _of this?" Dean demanded immediately. "Team-building exercises? We're not third-graders, you know, I think we have a few more important things to do than this. Are you trying to, what, trying to test us or something?"

Fury gazed at him for a long moment, and it suddenly struck Natasha just how tired the Director looked—being in charge of such a team, and responsible for the stopping of a crisis as big as this, had to take an unbelievable toll, especially when so much of the weight was forced onto the shoulders of a single man. And so she found herself sympathizing more than anything else at the exhaustion clear in his final words—which, despite that, didn't fail to twist her stomach ever so slightly.

"Yes. I suppose I am."


	8. Fragmentation

**Thanks to **_Byrneshadow, mudkipz, and Guest_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER VIII. **_Fragmentation_

"Alright, show me what you've got," Tony declared ten minutes later, gesturing to the wide gym that a SHIELD agent had quietly led them to after Fury's dismissal and Tony's change into his red and gold Iron Man suit. The high-ceilinged room was certainly impressive, even if he'd never admit it; there were a number of very tough-looking metal targets lined up at one end, ready to be pummeled by whichever forces he and Castiel could manage to apply, and the rest of the area was empty space—empty space, which was the most useful thing they could possibly be provided with for such raw power experiments as this.

Cas frowned, his head tilting. "What do you wish me to show you? My powers are greatly varied, and—"

"Those?" Tony wiggled his fingers vaguely towards the metal targets, which were rendered vaguely in the shape of humans, primitively shaped dummies that nonetheless were sure to serve their purpose. "Blast 'em."

Castiel's vivid eyes flickered shut for a moment as he turned to face the long line of sculptures, and his chest moved once, as if in a sharp inhalation, as his arm extended. Tony watched interestedly and acutely as the angel's fingers slowly tightened around the air. Perfectly in sync with the movement, one of the solid metal forms that must have been at least fifty yards away slowly twisted in on itself, crinkling like a hollow pop can. Cas then jerked his wrist violently to the right, and the destroyed form went sailing, knocking over a good three or four of its companions with a violent banging that caused Tony to clap his hands over his ears in alarm. Cas, however, seemed entirely unperturbed as he lowered his hand, an almost serene look settling over his features.

"I hope that properly matches your definition of blasting?" he checked, the barest hint of superiority in his usually calm, indifferent tone.

"Yeah. Yeah, no shit," Tony breathed in amazement, staring with undisguised awe at the wreckage.

"But Director Fury told us to find a way to _combine _our strengths," Cas went on, turning to face him fully. "So I suppose that this is the time for you to… show me what _you've _got."

"Alright, feathers," Tony laughed, running his tongue over the edge of his bottom teeth as his helmet flipped down, the blue-tinted screen within it immediately zeroing in on what remained of the targets. The metal was cool against his skin, and he could feel the power thrumming throughout the whole suit, fierce and rich. "You asked for it."

* * *

"You're holding it completely wrong," Natasha growled through gritted teeth.

"Like hell I'm holding it wrong. Do you have any friggin' idea how many demons I've killed like this?"

"In my meager experience, demons are idiots," she replied crisply. "And the creature that we're dealing with now, whatever it is, is most definitely _not _an idiot, so you probably shouldn't depend on treating him like one."

Dean watched her with a slightly incredulous look on her face as she hopped off the edge of the stool she had been perched on, stepping over to him. They stood at the edge of a long shooting range, and shots echoed dimly through the walls around them, from where other SHIELD agents were practicing in their own aisles.

"Look, ginger, I honestly doubt you have anything to offer me," he began. She had to hold back from slapping him across the face—or much worse—out of pure irritation, but she managed to keep herself under control as she reached out and grasped his hands, carefully rearranging his grip to a much more practical, less Hollywood position.

"It would seem that I do. There, try that," she commanded.

Scowling, he wordlessly lifted the gun, his hands instinctively slipping back into their original position as he did.

"No—no, stupid," she growled, reaching out and altering his grip again with expert, precise movements, ignoring the way he shied away from her. "Now _keep _it like that and try a shot."

"Why the hell should I?"

"Because I'm one of the most accomplished assassins on the planet and you're an obscure demon hunter who lives in a car. Just shoot the damned gun."

"It's a nice car," he muttered, but grudgingly slipped his finger down and squeezed down on the trigger. The target on the other end of the slim tunnel immediately sprouted a rupture in its tight-pulled fabric, several rings away from the bull's-eye.

"See?" he snapped, bringing the gun back down to his side and moving his fingers back to their original clutch in the meantime. "Totally useless. Now stop teaching me crap shooting positions and—"

She didn't let him continue, but instead reached out, taking the gun straight from his hands and lining it up to the target. Her next actions were undoubtedly childish, but she couldn't resist it—she pummeled the target, firing bullet after bullet into its surface, and being as careful as she could to make sure that each one of them hit it as squarely in its center as possible. Only when the gun was entirely emptied of ammo did she drop it, lungs still heaving with frustration. It was remarkable, really—she had an amazing control over her temper, but this idiot made it far too simple for anger to rise to the surface.

"I'd like to see you do that," she murmured silkily to his drop-jawed face, "before you insult anything I try to teach you. I've been with the Avengers for much longer than you, Mr. Winchester, and I have very little doubt that Fury positioned us together so that I could teach you what I know, not the other way around. It's not my fault if you're so used to a poor position that the correct one feels unnatural enough to throw you off. The only problem on my side will be if that's not fixed by the end of today. I'm here to give you what I know, and you're here to work with it. So, what do you say you take this gun"—she shoved it into his chest, and his hands moved reflexively up to grasp it—"and give it a few more tries?"

* * *

"I _think _the Doctor's been to Asgard," Rose mused. "He always talks so much about his past journeys, you know, it's a bit hard to tell them apart after a while." She cracked a slight smile and watched the stony face of her companion anxiously. Thor was, perhaps, the most closed-off of the Avengers—and she knew why; Fury had explained to her about Loki, and while she could absolutely respect the solemnity that Thor now possessed, she couldn't help but want to try and help him in whatever way she could to warm up a bit. This was about teamwork, after all, wasn't it?

"I'm sure it's an amazing place, though," she went on when he still didn't reply. The two of them were on the edge of the massive gym that they'd been provided with—she sat with her knees up and her arms wrapped around them, while he stood, shoulders hunched slightly, staring at the ground and occasionally glancing in her direction.

"It is," he murmured suddenly. His voice was deep, strong—surprisingly firm, as well, she noted. "A beautiful place—I knew a mortal woman once, and I wished to take her there, but she never did get to see all its glory."

Rose didn't ask what had happened to this unnamed woman—she didn't have to. "I'm sorry you never got that chance," she replied, keeping her tone gentle and quiet.

"I can barely stand it anymore. Asgard. I have too many memories. Memories of my brother…"

Now that she had gotten him to talk, it was like a dam broke. He still used short, halting sentences, and yet his emotions were painfully near the surface, and she wondered whether he was even addressing her anymore, or just pouring out everything he could.

"I probably should not miss him. He was evil in the end—I fought against him myself, multiple times. Yet he was still my brother. We were raised together… best friends." His pale blue eyes were unfocused, and Rose was sure that he was reliving the golden-hued memories that tainted his voice with such a damaged nostalgia. "And I still do believe, if only our father had been honest from the start… things would have fallen into place very differently."

"Yeah," Rose agreed softly. Half of what he was saying only confused her—Fury had given her the backstory of Loki's villainous reign, nothing more, and Thor's reminisces struck no chord with her. "I heard…" she started tentatively, then hesitated, wondering whether her intended words would be more damaging than anything else.

He blinked, as if bringing reality back into focus from behind thin layers of recollection, and glanced over at her. "You heard?"

"That you killed Lucifer. After he… after Loki. That's what Fury said."

"I did," he murmured, sounding almost surprised at the fact, as though only just then discovering it for himself. "I had no time to think… I was angry, and… hurt. I think"—For a moment, his voice broke into a rough laugh—"I think that the others—Stark especially—were rather disappointed that they did not have the chance to fight him, themselves."

"They've got a chance now, though. With this new… thing, whatever it is." The thought of their new, unnamed enemy drew the communicated humor from Rose's tone, and Thor's face, having shown the hint of a smile for the first time all day, hardened again.

"Yes. We should be… preparing, as Fury instructed."

"'Course." Rose hastily got to her feet, nodding. "Right, let's get to work."

* * *

"It really is… remarkable," John breathed in amazement.

Steve heaved a breath and set down the several-hundred-pound weight that he'd been suspending above his head, shoulders heaving and sweat streaming down his face and neck in thin streaks. "It's not exactly anything I can teach, though," he half-laughed, wiping strands of hair out of his face with the heel of his hand. "I'm not really sure what Fury expects."

"Well—" John was almost embarrassed to talk. He couldn't convince himself that he had a place here, among all these super-humans. It was obvious that he was only included due to Sherlock's dependency on him, and perhaps it was even intentional that Fury paired him with the one person who could hardly train others in his skills. The two of them were equally useless, in opposite ways—a rather depressing thought, and not one he intended to dwell on. "Maybe he just wants you to show me what you can do, so that I get a better idea of it."

Steve's mouth quirked up dryly. "It's more a question of what I _can't _do, really. That serum—you know how it happened, right? How I… transformed?"

John nodded quickly.

"Well, it was pretty much perfectly crafted. They wanted the ideal soldier, and that was what they got, at least mostly. I think I'm a little more… forgiving than they'd like, sometimes."

"Is it all physical strength? Or are tactics involved—guns, or…"

"I can use a gun," Steve allowed, "but… I try not to, when it's avoidable. There's the shield, of course…" His fingers drifted to the circular expanse of metal that he'd picked up on the way to the small gymnasium in which they were currently situated. It gleamed under the golden lights, the star in the center sparkling slightly and layers of radiance emanating from the thick, vivid stripes around it. It really was a remarkable piece of equipment, John thought, almost as hard to believe in as its owner.

"So you use the shield for offense, too?"

"Sort of. It can be damaging enough." As if to prove his point, he lifted it, poising as if to throw it like a Frisbee, and John flinched in the half-instant before common sense caught up with him and reminded him that Steve was nowhere near idiotic enough to toss such a powerful weapon around casually.

"Don't worry," the younger man laughed, apparently sensing John's alarm. "I'm not stupid… I've learned to be careful with it."

"Of course," John agreed, rather embarrassed for his own nervousness. "It must be a lot of responsibility, to have something that powerful all that time."

"It is… you've got no idea." His blue eyes reflected the different-colored stripes as he tilted the shield, so that it caught the light at different angles, glaring and glittering. "But, well… I'm used to it. Sort of fond of it, actually." He shook his head, setting it down on the ground beside him again. "Anyways. Just because Fury didn't give us exact directions doesn't mean we have to be totally useless, does it? Here, I can teach you a few basic combat moves, at least."

"Alright," John agreed, only a bit nervous as he stepped over to face Steve full-on. "Just… so long as you don't go full-out superhero on me. Better make sure I survive practice long enough to be in the real battle, right?"

"No problem, Doc," Steve grinned, lifting the shield once more.

* * *

With a sharp twang, the bow released, and the slim arrow within it sprang through the air, piercing it with a fluid grace for the barest fragment of a second before splintering violently into the target on the other end of the room. The Doctor's eyes widened with the impact, and he barely had time to register how remarkable Clint's shot had been before a second arrow joined the first, and then several more, so that the target seemed to be sprouting feathery shafts all around its center. After only a few sharp seconds, he lowered the bow, breathing heavily.

The target, in addition to its single arrow in the center, now had seven others surrounding it in a perfect circle. It was more masterful than repeated bulls-eyes could possibly have been—this demonstrated a different sort of accuracy entirely, one which paid no heed to painted lines.

"Brilliant," the Doctor breathed. "They weren't kidding, then, calling you the world's greatest archer."

"It's the only reason I have to consider myself superhuman," Clint replied, "so I have to be… brilliant. Otherwise, I don't have a place among the rest of you."

"I wouldn't say that," the Doctor countered, but the archer shrugged it off, shaking his head.

"I'm not trying to get sympathy, Doctor, so don't give me any. Whatever Fury said about team-building and friendship, I'm not going to use this time to share sob stories. We both have things to teach each other, so tell me what you've got. Any talents that don't rely on your time machine and fancy screwdriver?"

The Doctor blinked, then silently acquiesced, shifting onto the subject that Clint had picked up. "Well, I have my brain—and it is rather a good one, in my opinion."

"Right, of course, the genius alien. What about physically? Ever shot a bow?"

"A couple of times. I prefer not to become too overly familiar with most weaponry."

"Yeah, I've noticed." He swung his bow over his shoulder and crossed his arms. "Well, listen. That's not going to be an option this time around. Torchwood has made it pretty clear that being nice isn't going to go anywhere controlling this creature in the ways we need to."

"They didn't try 'being nice,'" the Doctor countered, "at least not according to Fury. He said that they were cruel to him from the start—"

"I'm not going to argue about it," Clint cut across. "Like I said, I just want to get done what we have to. I know you don't like killing, but I also know that sometimes it's essential. Looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree, here, or we won't be getting anywhere with our little team-building time."

The Doctor stared for several long seconds, rather conflicted. The cold-eyed agent didn't seem angry, exactly, but it was clear that he was walking a thin line. And as much as he hated to "agree to disagree" with such an important topic as this, it looked rather like he really wouldn't be getting anywhere otherwise.

"We can… put our differences aside for now," he allowed, his voice much quieter than usual. "Though I do hope that you're smart enough to make the right decisions when the time comes."

"I've been making a lot of decisions all my life, Doctor," Clint replied evenly, breaking their stare and turning to pace down the shooting range. "There are plenty that I'm ashamed of, and some that I'd say I'm pretty happy with. I've killed a lot of people, too, and you know what's funny?" He plucked the center arrow out of the target, then turned, gripping it tight in his hand as his unblinking gaze returned to the Doctor once more. "Almost all of those have been the _good _choices. Sparing people is what I usually come to regret."

"Yes, well," the Doctor murmured in response, his own eyes drifting downwards, "you haven't lived long enough to learn otherwise. Most people never do."


	9. Metamorphosis

**Thanks to **_Kathrin J Pearl, tranland, Tutto-E-Lecito, and mudkipz_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER IX. **_Metamorphosis_

"Jesus Christ," Dean muttered, sidling up to Cas as soon as he saw him in the hallway. Natasha set herself purposefully to the side, an actual sigh of relief flowing from her lips as the hunter released himself from her company. "That woman, I swear—she may be nice to look at, but an hour alone with her just about makes you want to kill yourself."

The angel made a small, noncommittal noise. "Perhaps it is a trait shared by all of these… superheroes, then."

"Dude, I'm sure Stark was a piece of cake compared to that bitch."

"I disagree." His tone was lower, gruffer than usual—clearly as frustrated with the product of the last few hours as Dean was.

"Where is he, anyways?"

"I…" Castiel glanced over his shoulder, then frowned deeply. "I'm not sure… it would appear that he left on his own time."

Dean snorted, driven to the humor by the pure relief of being with Cas again. Natasha Romanoff was an absolutely exhausting woman, he'd thoroughly decided; she had no room for the partner-building that Fury had indicated their goal to be, instead choosing to act as though her knowledge was constantly superior and anything he had to offer was of little or no importance whatsoever.

The whole few hours had passed like that, really—Natasha being domineering, Dean attempting to offer his own thoughts and never getting farther than the first few words out of his mouth. There had been a brief, relieving pause during which they had a quick lunch delivered to them by a tired-looking agent, and then the uselessness had resumed, continuing up until now—six in the evening, and, according to Fury's loudspeaker announcement, time for them to eat dinner.

"Really, though," Dean went on as they followed Natasha in the direction of the dining area—the layout of their little sector of SHIELD was becoming more familiar, though it was still all too easy to get lost in the shadowed, winding hallways. "You'd think that a guy who's managed to harness control of this entire organization might have a little more sense than to shove strangers together and watch how much they could irritate each other."

"I am sure," Castiel replied evenly, "that Director Fury has a larger plan than any of us can presently imagine. As you said, he does have power over SHIELD, and that sort of control does not come without trial. Fury is smart. He knows what he's doing."

"God, I hope he does," Dean growled. His stomach then decided to join in the noise, the snarl ripping through it more amplified than any of their dry, quick-spoken words—enough so, in fact, that Natasha glanced over her shoulder in a swish of dark red locks, her face torn between humor and irritation.

"I also hope that there's something good to eat," he added as soon as she'd turned back around. "Those sandwich things at lunch were seriously the most disgusting crap I've had in ages."

"That's because they were properly nutritious," Cas murmured, "rather than the oily provisions that you often choose for yourself."

"Remind me again, when did you become a dietician?"

The dining area, which they entered moments later, was shaped much like a school lunchroom, with rows of long, thin tables—only one or two of which was needed to seat all of the Avengers, Dean noted—and a sleek counter decked with food running along one side, behind which was a kitchen.

"He wasn't kidding when he said he thought of us as kindergarteners," Dean breathed, his voice laced with disgust and somewhat ironic glee combined. "Man, I haven't seen anything like this for decades."

The rest of the group, including Tony, were already seated at the first of the long tables, plates and bowls decked with a surprising array of food set in front of them. Fury was nowhere in sight, nor were any sort of serving people. Shrugging, Dean started towards the table on his own, reaching out and hooking a plate around his fingers.

"You just missed him," Rose called up from the table, where she sat with the Doctor on one side and Thor on the other. Dean felt his eyebrows arch at the position of the Asgardian—maybe that pair, at least, had managed to form some sort of friendship in their forced time together. "There's all sorts of food, go ahead and help yourself—he's given us an hour to eat, then he has some sort of meeting planned."

"Feels like summer camp, doesn't it?" Dean teased Cas, tilting open the first of the hot dishes and peering inside. He scowled when greeted by an array of what appeared to be roasted vegetables, dropping the lid as if burned.

"I never attended—" the angel began.

"Dude, I know. I know."

The next couple of dishes also didn't suit his needs, and it wasn't until about a third of the way down the makeshift buffet that he opened one of the dishes and was greeted by the steaming scent of beef. "Oh, yeah, now that's more like it," he chuckled, using the on-hand spatula to flip himself out one of the juicy-looking patties. Snatching a bun from a bag and a bottle of ketchup from the table, he scooped up his plate and headed over to the table, managing to slide into the only open place visible, next to Steve Rogers, whose other side was occupied by John Watson. He scowled slightly—maybe it was in more than one area that the so-called "team-building activities" had had their desired result.

"Think we're the only ones bothered by the kindergarten treatment?" he asked of Cas, who immediately slipped in next to him without picking up anything to eat.

"Most of them knew each other beforehand," the angel replied. "You were in the hospital ward the majority of the last time they were all assembled—there was never an opportunity for bonding on your part."

"Yeah, I suppose not." It was true—they hadn't even wanted him as part of their stupid Avengers originally, in fact. They'd only brought him in because Lucifer, for a blessedly brief period of time, had been holding him hostage for Cas… memories of that dark mansion where he'd been imprisoned, of the Devil's laugh and the feel of too much blood on his skin, flashed suddenly before him, and his fingers tightened their grip on the metal of the plate, jaw muscles tensing up.

_Don't be stupid. You're fine. _

Lucifer's laughter—Sam's laughter—

"Dean," Castiel murmured, and then Dean felt a hand on his side, and took a deep breath. It was hard, impossible, to always suppress his memories of Sam, to pretend like they didn't hurt. He managed to, though. He managed to, and that was all that mattered.

"Hey—hey, look at this," a soft voice spoke up, cutting through the general bubble of conversation. Heads tilted and necks craned towards Bruce, the one who had spoken, as he held up a sheaf of newspaper which he'd presumably been reading. "There's been another murder—near London, Tom Jackman's been taken in!"

_"What?" _Sherlock exclaimed, his eyes sharpening. Dean's mouth fell open, astounded, and he leaned in like the rest of them to try and get a better view of the article. Large block letters read across the top _CORPSE FOUND SLAUGHTERED EAST OF LONDON—SUSPECT ARRESTED, _with a far too familiar face watching in black-in-white ink amidst the words of the twin columns below.

"Damn it," Dean hissed through his teeth, "god _damn _it."

"So it was Jackman all along?" John questioned. "The _police _caught him before us?"

Sherlock made a low noise in his throat somewhere between a whine and a growl.

"It doesn't make any _sense,_" Natasha breathed. "If he knew people were on his trail—why would he do something like this immediately after we made it clear that we'd discovered him?"

"His strength should be considered, as well," Thor spoke up. "He escaped Torchwood. He would not allow himself to be arrested by the common law force unless he wanted to be."

"But why would he _want _to be?" Rose pointed out. "It's making less and less sense…"

Sherlock began speaking, then, his eyes directed towards the paper but blearily unfocused as a series of sharp words tumbled out of his mouth, practically skipping along as they attempted to keep up with his train of thought. "You met Tom Jackman and decided he was innocent. He knew that you suspected him and that you were keeping an eye on him. He then proceeded to commit a murder—which he has never directly done before—and allow himself to be arrested, despite his clear ability to avoid such a fate if he so wished. Attention—it's almost as if he's doing this to _get _our attention, but that makes no sense, he doesn't have any motivation—he's a mad killer, he has to be, unless he's been set against us from the beginning and there's a reason that he even let himself be captured by _Torchwood _for the time, to draw us in—has he wanted SHIELD's attention since the beginning? No, no, no, no, _no. _We're missing something. We're missing something huge." His eyes, suddenly flying into focus again, swept swiftly around everyone else sitting at the table, as if demanding an answer from them. "What are we missing?"

The Doctor, for once, was silent, with his fingers brushing his jaw and his eyes shadowed, clearly in deep thought. Thor looked vaguely confused, John worried, Tony frustrated, and Steve shocked, while Clint and Natasha wore identical expressions of puzzled irritation and Bruce retained the same concerned look as before, still holding up the article.

"None of _us _know," Dean pointed out baldly, his own anger singeing his stomach with an acid pointedness. So it had been Jackman—of course, it had been Jackman the whole goddamned time, and he had let him go, even though he _knew _what was going on—he should have insisted on taking him in there and then, disregarding what Fury or the Doctor or any of the rest of them wanted… should have trusted his instincts. But now the creature was still out there—after all, he certainly wasn't going to remain in custody—and everyone was in danger, all because he'd made a single stupid decision.

"Of course you don't," Sherlock spat, "why would you ever stop being idiotic for the petty benefit of being able to save lives?"

* * *

The almost familial atmosphere that they'd come near capturing at the beginning of dinner was completely gone by the time they headed towards their dormitories for the night, after an exhaustively long meeting that mainly consisted of Fury demanding to know what they'd learned from each other over the course of the day, as well as a pulsating air of frustration from all of them at their failure with Jackman.

Now, the simmering rage that mainly seemed to have been emanating from Dean and Natasha was finally relieved as they all split up—headed towards two-person suites normally belonging to regular agents, which Fury had assigned to them for the night. There were numerous protests from those who'd enjoyed the hospitality of Stark Tower, but Fury's reply was that he needed to keep them closer together, more willing to act as soon as possible—the Doctor, Dean, Cas, Clint, and Natasha's idea of going after Hyde alone, apparently, was far from an encouragement for him to give them more freedom.

Thankfully, Fury did allow them to bunk with the person of their choice, resulting in the rather predictable pairings of John and Sherlock, Dean and Cas, Clint and Natasha, Tony and Bruce, Steve and Thor, and the Doctor and Rose. John wasn't particularly looking forward to the time spent with the presently silent and brooding the detective, who he knew was less than likely to sleep when there was a question like this on his mind.

"We're missing something huge," he repeated continuously, and that was the last thing he said before disappearing into the toilet of their room, closing the door loudly behind him. John now sat on the edge of one of the two twin beds, where he'd been for the past twenty minutes, while Sherlock isolated himself in the small space that was apparently more conductive to his raging thoughts.

It wasn't a bad room, as their options went—nothing hugely fancy, either, but perhaps the quality of an average hotel. The two beds weren't overly comfortable-looking, which was reasonable enough, John figured; SHIELD was hardly famous for its luxurious hospitality. Other than them, the room was generally featureless, with a couple of metal chairs shoved against the blank wall opposite them and a narrow door leading to the room in which Sherlock was currently situated.

They'd been led to their luggage beforehand—the couple of suitcases of clothes and such that John had managed to pull together before they left Baker Street, in the few minutes that Natasha had allowed. They sat next to the bed now, and John leaned down with an exhausted sigh, pulling up his own battered brown case and settling it on the stiff mattress of the bed. He could hardly change, of course, until Sherlock was out of the bathroom—which wasn't going to be anytime soon; the digital clock on the shared bedside table read _22:56, _a good twenty-five minutes after the detective had first isolated himself—but it would provide some sort of reassurance, surely, to at least be able to see his own possessions again.

The distinct, slightly musty aroma of Baker Street lifted as soon as he unclasped and opened the lid, wreathing him with a tight cloak of homesickness. His clothes looked slightly wrinkled, nothing compared to the small wardrobe that Pepper Potts had assembled for him back at Stark Tower, but it was reassuring to see and touch the familiar patterns and textures of his own shirts and trousers. Perched at the top of the pile was the book he'd brought along on a whim, doubtful as he had been that he'd get any free time—a thin paperback copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic _Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. _It wasn't his normal sort of literature choice, but after Mike Stamford had recently reprimanded him for neglecting the classics, he'd supposed that he'd ought to start somewhere. It was an interesting enough story, though there was a distinctly odd feel about it that never failed to unsettle him. Still, even the eeriness was welcome now, in such a foreign place as SHIELD—undoubtedly, it would serve to remind him of warm evenings in Baker Street, of the home life, spiced up regularly by crime, which he'd come to grow fond of.

Sighing again, he removed the book and then clicked the suitcase shut, replacing it by the bed as he leaned back against the pillows and cracked open the slim, dog-eared volume. His eyes settled onto the words, but he hadn't the time to read more than a sentence and a half before the bang of Sherlock's reemergence thundered through the room.

"I'm _missing _something!" the detective seethed for what felt like the hundredth time. "I'm missing something huge… what am I missing, John?"

"I wouldn't know," he muttered, still rather exasperated. "Maybe there just isn't enough information—perhaps you ought to give—"

"Do _not _tell me to give up. No, no, there's enough information, I know there is, of course there is—there's always enough information, don't you see? This is bizarre, all of it, and that irregularity makes it _easier, _cuts out a cleaner silhouette in the evidence that can only be filled by the solution. It all comes back to Tom Jackman—there's something about him, and of course I have a thousand ways to explain it, but none of them are _massive _enough, none of them fit perfectly… I need a push, John, a push; it's lingering just outside of my realm of realization, it's _taunting _me, it's _right there, _right—"

He stopped speaking so suddenly that John, whose gaze had begun to fall back to the novel in disinterest, looked up in swift concern. "You alright?" he checked, but Sherlock was frozen, his shoulders heaving, his face even paler than usual and his stare seemingly fixated on the book in John's hands.

"Sherlock?" he repeated when there was no reply. "Sherlock!"

"That's it," the detective breathed, and his voice was almost breathy in its amazement, in its victory—not quite relief, but rather the refreshing brightness of a breakthrough, of understanding.

"What's it? Sherlock—"

"Jekyll and Hyde… John, it's Jekyll and Hyde!"

"Yes, of course it's Jekyll and Hyde," he snapped back. "I find it interesting, alright? You should try reading fiction sometime, give your mind something to do other than—"

"No, not the _book_, you idiot! Tom Jackman—there are two of them! A physical change, yes, yes, _yes, _it worked with Banner, so why shouldn't it with Jackman? Though it could be different circumstances, of course, probably is, not necessarily a chemical accident—how his shape remains almost uniform, it must be something minor, nothing massive and green… inhumanly strong, though, yes, yes, _yes!" _

"What the hell are you going on about?" John demanded, shoving the book aside.

"Tom Jackman, John—Tom Jackman and our creature, they're the same person… or at least they have the same body. It's like Dr. Banner and the Hulk—it's like Jekyll and Hyde!"


	10. Dark

**A/N** _Bit more of Hyde here._

**Thanks to **_Kathrin J Pearl, tranland, Natalie Nallareet, mudkipz, and Guest_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER X. **_Dark_

"Holy hell," John breathed, gazing down at the thin cover of the book now lying on the stiff bedspread. Suddenly, the cover—previously so harmless, even innocent with its cheap illustration of a man's face split down the middle—elicited light chills, genuinely horrifying. "Do you—do you really… is that possible?"

"We're part of a team of superheroes, John," Sherlock shot back, already on the other side of the room, with his hand running through his hair and his eyes bright. "One of which is an angel. Is possibility really a factor anymore?"

"S'pose not—hey, where are you going?"

"Director Fury has to know!" Sherlock shot, turning back with one hand on the doorknob. There was a manic sort of intensity in his face, the look of a man who'd made a truly remarkable breakthrough—which, indeed, he had. "And the rest of them—this is it, this is the piece we've been looking for!"

"Wait up, then!" John said in alarm as the detective took off down the hallway without farther ado. He swung his legs off the bed and hurried after, trying not to pay any attention to the fact that he was shaking slightly, presumably with the adrenaline of a new discovery. By the time he reached the hallway, Sherlock's slim figure had disappeared around the corner, and it was only after several minutes of dashing about and attempting to find the conference room that he stumbled into it completely by accident, intending to ask for directions and instead finding himself confronted with the Director and the detective, both speaking lowly and intently.

"You're _sure _about this, Holmes?" Fury clarified, glancing up but making no farther move to acknowledge John's entrance. "Because I am not going to waste my time going after an innocent man."

"Absolutely sure, Director. It fits all the facts perfectly—the only question is _how, _but that barely is a question, half of what we do is impossible nowadays. Perhaps he'll give in to a bit of interrogation after we manage to take him in—all a matter of time, though, what matters now is that we go and fetch him from the police before he breaks and does something to them."

"We at least have to call the team together," Fury muttered decidedly. He hurried to the wall, his long, dark coat swishing with the motion, and depressed what seemed to be an intercom button perched next to a small speaker.

"Avengers, report to the central conference room immediately. Holmes has made a discovery that requires immediate action."

"They aren't going to be very happy at being pulled back right before bed," John pointed out, more giddy than truly concerned. This was it, he reminded himself—finally, _finally, _everything was going right. They'd be able to pick Jackman up, figure out what was wrong with him, and put him under protection. Then they'd be free to go—free to go back home, a place that he'd never imagined being able to miss so much.

"At this point, Dr. Watson, it's about anything but happiness," was Fury's sharp retort.

Even with the urgency of his summons, it took near a quarter hour for everyone to get into the room, the time of which was spent with Sherlock tapping his foot rapidly and Fury glaring out at the hallway and periodically re-announcing the situation. Natasha and Clint were the first to arrive, followed by the Doctor, then Thor and Steve. Tony, Bruce, Dean, and Cas arrived last in a large group, and Fury didn't give them a moment to catch their breath before pouncing.

"And just what the hell were you thinking, taking so long?" he demanded.

"Sorry, got lost," Dean grumbled. His eyes were a bit bleary, and John wondered vaguely if he'd already gotten to bed by the time he was called in—it would have required being very tired, but looking over the rather pale hunter and reflecting on the fact that he'd been paired with Natasha Romanoff, it didn't seem that far a leap.

"We don't have time for you to get lost, Winchester. Like I said, this is urgent."

"Then tell us what it is, why don't you?" Tony questioned eagerly. He was the opposite of Dean—bright-eyed and eager, apparently all too prepared for attacking the new case. Fury nodded and gestured that they sit down—the Doctor did, but the rest remained standing, their expressions ranging from frustrated to triumphant, waiting for an explanation.

"Holmes, I think it might be best if you detail your thought process for yourself."

"Very well, Director." Sherlock turned to the rest of them, his chin high and his lips curved in a slight smirk. "It's become very clear to me, _team"_—he used the word with no small matter of sarcasm—"that we are indeed dealing with something inhuman—and simultaneously the most human thing there is."

"Don't be all mysterious and shit, _please,_" Dean whined. "Just let us know what we need to."

"Tom Jackman is the victim of… let's call it a _disorder,_" Sherlock went on. Any other time, John was sure he'd have paused just to irritate Dean, but his own urgency was clear, even disguised as it was under a smooth, casual tone. "One which has appeared a few different times throughout history—always dismissed or hushed up, of course. The only case of it that the majority of you would be familiar with is that documented by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson."

"Jekyll and Hyde?" Steve blurted out immediately, then looked slightly embarrassed as all the wide-eyed heads of the room turned towards him. "Sorry, it—I read it back… before any of this happened. Um—very good book."

"You read classic fiction?" Tony questioned, sounding as though he couldn't quite decide whether to be awed or humored. An almost shy nod was returned, and Sherlock rolled his eyes, clearing his throat strongly to bring the room's attention back to himself.

"Yes, Jekyll and Hyde. A variation of this sort of _illness, _I believe, can be seen in our own Dr. Banner."

"I have… thought of the comparison before," Bruce admitted.

"Hold on." Natasha lifted her hand in a gesture to slow down, looking far less impressed than the rest of them. "What makes you think that Jackman is… Jekyll? What proof do you have?"

"I don't _need _proof, Agent Romanoff. I have the facts, and that's all I need."

"Give them to us, then," Clint demanded, supporting Natasha as always.

"Fine. The physicality alone is practically enough to give it away—stunning similarity, more so than even most identical twins would have, but with a few very specific differences. You'd all agree, I believe, that the image sent by Torchwood provides for a much more menacing image than the face of the Jackman you encountered? Classic; Hyde had the same sort of differences. The personalities, then. One a rampant, psychopathic murderer, the other a quiet, tired, smart sort of man. And of course the memory—Jackman denied that he had murdered anyone, and he was telling the truth, at least to the best of his knowledge. Isn't that right, Agents? Unless you intend to suggest that you don't have any particularly remarkable skills at lie-detecting, yourselves?"

Natasha scowled slightly, but otherwise didn't react.

"The inhuman strength, that's part of it, too. Even the name is similar—Jackman. I wouldn't be surprised if he was a descendant of the original Jekyll line, which absolutely would have changed their name after the infamy of Stevenson's so-called _novel… _there's nothing that does _not _fit. And now, we need to go retrieve Jackman from that jail where he's being kept, and quickly, before he decides to pull another Houdini stunt. We can't afford to lose him again, not now that we know how dangerous he is."

"You aren't all going," Fury cut in. "He needs to be captured, not overwhelmed. A simple matter of transportation—coming in, coming out; we shouldn't need any more than Castiel alone for the job."

"Wait, wait, _hell _no," Dean interrupted. "He's not going anywhere without me."

"You'll only hold him up."

"No, I… it would be good, for me to have backup," Castiel interrupted, glancing over towards Dean. "Being accompanied by at least one another will assist rather than hinder me."

There was a brief pause, then Fury exhaled heavily. "Fine. Winchester, Romanoff, Barton. You're going to the jail with Castiel."

"I'll need the location," Cas murmured as Natasha scowled and Clint stiffened in what could be eagerness as easily as frustration.

"Guess we're staying back here, then?" John murmured to Sherlock, who responded with a faint noise of irritation.

"Nothing strange whatsoever about that. Missing the action is hardly a concern, but I can't claim to have that much faith in their success."

"They'll do fine," John insisted, to reassure himself just as much as Sherlock. Castiel, having received the address from Fury, was now reaching out. Dean took one of his hands, while Natasha wrapped her fingers around his other wrist and Clint gripped the side of his coat.

The truth was that he was worried. More than worried—positively anxious at the choice by the man whom he was finding himself to trust less and less as time progressed. He had to have some faith in Fury, though. It was the only option, unless he wanted to find himself and the rest of them entirely without guidance.

So he forced himself into blind confidence, swallowing and leaning just a bit closer to Sherlock as Castiel and his company winked out of existence.

* * *

Dean hit the ground with no small lack of grace, half-gasping as his elbow collided with cool cement and a jarring chill raced through him. "…Damn it," he groaned, shifting onto his side. "Cas, don't you think you could be just a bit more…"

He trailed off as it hit him that the rest of them were perfectly silent.

Swallowing, he forced himself onto his knees and then his feet, ignoring the pang in his elbow, which he figured was sure to bruise. It was dim—not black, but several seconds still passed before his eyes adjusted enough to identify the several figures clustered in the small room with him.

Cas had aimed well, it seemed, even if the actual transition was a bit rough. There was no doubt that they were in a prison cell—a very small one, a hundred square feet at best, tiny enough to give a definite sense of being more than a little cramped. Cas was near the barred door, squinting into the hallway, which was slightly brighter than the shadowed area they were locked into. Clint and Natasha lingered by the far wall, if any side could be called as much, their gazes directed warily towards the final occupant.

His face was shadowed, sitting as he was on the thin bunk shoved up close to the wall. His body shape didn't much resemble that of Tom Jackman—it seemed minutely slimmer, and perhaps a few inches taller, though height was hard to judge from his hunched position. The dark, tousled hair was all too familiar, though, and as Dean gaped, the stranger's head slowly rose—not in the sort of startled motion understandable in the case of four people materializing in one's jail cell, but rather a movement that was steady and almost eerily graceful—predatory, somehow.

It was undeniably the man that Torchwood had first issued a warning about.

Dark, arched eyebrows stretched over wide eyes that seemed pure black, not quite inky enough to belong to demons but haunting nonetheless. His features were handsome in a sharp, cultured sort of way, and a wide grin gleamed in the murky semi-darkness. It was that grin that caused Dean's stomach to drop and turn, because despite the familiarity of the rest of the face, the smile absolutely did not belong anywhere near the solemnity of Tom Jackman.

"Mm, hello again," he purred. His voice was rich, syrupy, and he oscillated his head slightly as he spoke.

"You say _again,_" Castiel replied in a low growl, "but we haven't met you before… your body, but not you."

"Ooh, quick, are you?" The creature's eyes drifted shut for a moment, and he drew in a long, deep breath as if tasting the air. Dean, utterly confused by this greeting, glanced up and down the figure of the man who he supposed was their prisoner, rewarded only with more expressions of relaxation, casualty. "No… no," he went on, eyelids lifting again, "_I _haven't met you… Daddy has, though. He didn't like you, either. Which I suppose means that we should be friends… enemy of my enemy, and whatnot."

"I'm afraid we're not here to be friendly, Mr. Hyde," Natasha replied through gritted teeth, and in a single swift movement she had her gun cocked and aimed. Though she was still a yard away from her target, there was no doubt that her aim was flawless, and if she pulled the trigger, the creature would go down.

"Wait," Dean muttered, edging towards her with a hand raised in caution. "…Don't shoot."

"I'm afraid you aren't my superior here, Winchester."

"Fury wants him alive," he replied through gritted teeth, struggling not to grip her by the throat and shake some sense into her. "There won't be much of a way to figure out what the hell he is if he's _dead, _is there?"

Natasha didn't reply, but her grip on the weapon seemed to loosen slightly, and that was enough to keep him contented for the time being. He glanced back over towards the creature—Hyde—who was now stretching, extending his hands in front of him until the joints of his shoulders cracked audibly.

"Not my friends, then," he acquiesced. "Well, if you'd like it that way… though perhaps I ought to warn you, darlings, I'm not the best person to have as an enemy."

"Torchwood let us know that already," Clint replied coldly. "That's why we're here, in fact. You're not going to hurt civilians any longer."

"Oh, but I _hate _people telling me what to do."

Tension was tight in every muscle in Dean's body. Hyde's behavior was too fluid, and he didn't _look _dangerous enough to have overcome Torchwood alone. There was no doubt as to him having the power, though, so what was causing him to hold back? There was certainly something, some method to their manners that resulted in his restraint, and its breakpoint was inevitably approaching.

He glanced towards Cas, attempting to convey some extent of his concern, and was rewarded with an even stare from dark azure eyes, just as confused and doubtful as he himself was feeling.

"Then we'll have to resort to more forceful methods," Natasha murmured, raising the nose of the gun again. "Either come along nicely, or we're going to have to be more damaging than we'd strictly prefer."

"Your preferences aren't of my concern," he shot back, and the words, while bracingly singsong, were practically shouted, startling enough that Dean flinched and would have set back if not for the determination he'd already armed himself with.

"Shame," Natasha snarled, and pulled the trigger.

Or at least she attempted to pull the trigger. She got no farther than a twitch in the muscles of her upper arm before a blur flashed across the rooms, tearing itself forward with more swiftness than a ghost, and then her weapon was hitting the ground heavily and the bullet was shooting out from between the bars of the door, ricocheting somewhere in the hallway and causing a wave of sparks to fire up from hidden metal.

Clint shouted out her name—_"Tasha!"_—but Dean was paralyzed, unable to do anything but stare on in horror as Hyde shoved Natasha violently against the wall, his fingers wound up in the collar of her sleek suit and his bared teeth inches away from her wide-eyed face.

"I _hate_," he repeated, pronouncing each syllable slowly and carefully in a macabre imitation of condescension, "silly little people telling me what to do."

She inhaled sharply, audible even from across the room, and then there was another flash—Hyde's movements seemed almost to jerk and blur as he whipped a hand behind his back, bringing it back up in time for his knuckles to collide violently with her cheek, splitting the skin immediately and sending a thick rivulet of blood down to her pale chin.

The movement set the rest of them into motion—previously, the three men had been unable to move, frozen with uncertainty from Hyde's aggressive but harmless position, but the outright violence was enough to launch them into pure defense.

Clint reached them first, lashing out at Hyde's shoulder. The monster didn't so much as glance behind himself before retaliating, taking the assassin's wrist and wrenching it sideways with skilled precision, eliciting a muted cry and sending Clint sprawling across the room, his head colliding with the cement wall. He slumped down, not quite unconscious but nowhere near strong enough to rise again.

Dean would have been worried—scared, even, at Hyde's easy handling of one of the most physically accomplished people he knew—if he'd been willing to spare the time enough for any sort of doubt to cross him. Instead, he threw himself towards the thin, dark-haired man, unarmed but instead lashing out with his hands, reaching for throat, temples, anything vulnerable.

He didn't even see Hyde move, but suddenly there was a fist in his stomach, as strong and solid as iron, and the breath flew from him with such intensity that stars exploded behind his eyes and static numbness sucked against the back of his skull as he stumbled backwards. For a moment, everything rang and blazed black and purple and red, then he became aware of arms around him, stopping him from collapsing to the floor, supporting him under his shoulders and behind his head.

"Dean." The voice pierced the veil of pain raging through him, and was instantly cooling, relieving. Castiel.

"Shit, Cas," he tried to say, but his lungs felt flattened, and it came out as a raw sort of whimper. _Get Hyde. Save Natasha. Get Hyde. _

Slowly, the warmth leached away, and a sudden wave of violent nausea swept over him. His head tilted sideways—there was a wall behind him now, Cas must have… Cas had set him down—lights flashed before his eyes and sounds whistled aimlessly through his skull, shouting, crashes, something that might have been laughter…

When he next managed to orient his senses, the cell was dark and quiet again. Clint and Natasha were limp forms on the ground, and Cas stood at the door—the prison door, which was somehow destroyed entirely, the bars ripped apart by energy that was doubtlessly superhuman. The angel's eyes were wide as he gazed out into the hallway, his face set and solemn.

Hyde was gone.


	11. Fury

**A/N** _The chapter title isn't meant to be a pun... I... honestly._

**Thanks to **_Guest, tranland, and mudkipz_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER XI. **_Fury_

"Cas," Dean gasped, finally harnessing control of his lungs, or at least enough so to get the name out. "What—what the hell—where is he? Did you let him—" Lack of breath cut off his intended accusations, and he ended up coughing, squeezing his eyes shut as his lungs and stomach heaved painfully and a retch worked its way into his throat. He still felt nauseated from Hyde's iron punch, but he forced himself to stand up, anyways, legs shaking as he leaned heavily against the cold wall and tried to ignore the sickness pulsing inside of him.

"He is strong," Cas breathed, whisking around swiftly enough that his coat swished in the breeze of his movement. He paced over to Natasha, whose pale face was drenched in scarlet, and moved his fingers to her neck. "Much stronger than I could have anticipated."

"Yeah, but you're an _angel,_" Dean managed to get out. He tried to pretend like he couldn't see Natasha's chilling stillness, or like he wouldn't care about the worst even if it was happening, but it was impossible, and moments later he found himself at Castiel's side, just as eager to check the condition of the assassin as he was to try and get more answers from the angel. "It shouldn't be a problem for you—to smite him, I mean."

"He's fast."

"Dude, can you be just a _bit _more specific here?"

Cas was silent for a long moment, then moved his hand under Natasha's head, lifting her slowly from the ground and hoisting her limp form over his shoulder. "She's alive," he murmured, switching the subject around entirely, "but not for long. We need to get back to SHIELD, as fast as possible."

"Cas!" Dean snapped, finally managing to force his voice into something more than a ghostly rasp. "Where the hell did Hyde go?"

For the first time, a blue flame scorched through Cas's stoic expression, and his lips pulled back from his teeth as he near-spat the next words, his voice low and grating. "I don't know, Dean! I was too careless, I sliced open the bars and he ran out. I had no way to leave the rest of you behind—he could be anywhere by now."

"Can't you detect him? You've got all your angel mojo, come on, don't suddenly act useless! And you can heal Natasha, too—what are you waiting for? You said yourself she's almost dead!"

"You do not come near understanding the precision of my powers," was the sharp retort. "Hyde's spiritual signature was very chaotic, very dynamic. It's as challenging to target him amongst the billions of lights in this world as it would be for you to choose a copper coin from a gallon of silver ones by taste alone. And, yes, I can heal her. Of course I can."

"Then—then what are you waiting for?" he spluttered, trying to set aside the first issue for now—Hyde's danger certainly wasn't lowered by the injury of their companion, but it was becoming clear enough that Cas had nothing more to say on the subject.

"The rest of them need to see this. They need to understand how powerful this creature is—otherwise, there's a chance of underestimation, which could result in us repeating our failure."

"For Christ's sake, Cas! Just tell them! They don't need—they don't need to _see _this! She's dying…"

"An explanation won't have nearly as much impact. And impact is exactly what we need right now."

"So you're sacrificing her _life _for us to have more _impact?" _

"She is not going to die!"

"You just said yourself that she was!" Dean shouted, his throat aching. His desperation was beginning to trim down his sense of logic, and the thought that he was delaying Cas, or even that every minute they spent here was a bit closer to being caught by the prison guard who would surely be showing up after the destruction of the cell, came nowhere near crossing his mind.

"Which is why I have to leave as soon as possible."

"What if it was me?" Dean blurted out, all too aware of how shallowly Natasha's chest was rising and falling. Cas's eyes widened briefly, his neck and shoulders seeming to stiffen up, but Dean didn't relent, just plowed on, taking ahold of the only advantage he had and twisting it to get as much leverage as possible. "What if I was the one who got almost killed, not just socked in the gut? Would you waste time being a pretty little soldier, or would you fix me up before I _died? _Tell me the goddamned truth."

The angel was silent for too long, far too long, so that the only noise in the small cell was the layered breathing of its four occupants. Dean was about to burst out again, scream at Cas to forget it and just stop wasting time, just get Natasha to safety, before the angel spoke—each of his words hard, resolved, colder than liquid nitrogen.

"I would do my duty to the greater good."

A shuffle suddenly came from beside Dean, and he tore his eyes all too willingly away from the angel, like the response hadn't caused his stomach to heave and his shoulders to shake, like he didn't feel the purest of bittersweet pains coursing through every vein in his body. He turned to Clint, whose eyes were suddenly wide open rather than half-lidded as he scrambled into a standing position.

"Tasha?" he mumbled, the word barely articulate. He lifted a hand to rub at the back of his skull where it had collided with the wall after Hyde threw him. "What… ugh. Goddammit." He pressed his lips tightly together as if holding back a pained wail, and Dean might have felt a twinge of sympathy if his own agony level wasn't so high that he could barely stand already.

He glanced back in Cas's direction, about to prompt the angel to just _go and fucking save Natasha, _but his eyes fell only upon empty space—the two of them had already vanished, soundlessly as always. It caused an odd drop in his stomach to see them gone, but it was a sort of twisted relief, at the same time—now he could focus on Clint, on making sure that the two of them lasted until Cas could return and take them away.

"You alright?" he asked of the archer, offering a hand to help him into a steadier position. Clint accepted it wordlessly, wincing.

"Don't know. Doesn't matter. Where did Castiel and Natasha go?"

"He's taking her back to SHIELD—she got beat up pretty bad."

"Shit." He leaned his head against the wall, teeth clenched tight. His eyes gleamed with what were unquestionably tears, but Dean told himself they must be from the physical pain; he'd never seen Clint Barton anywhere near concerned enough to actually approach crying. "How bad?"

"She was alive, but… barely, according to Cas. He can fix her up, though," Dean promised, hoping that the words didn't ring too hollow. "He's got his angel powers and all that."

"Angel powers. Right. What about Hyde?" His tone made it clear that he didn't want to change the subject, but rather was acting as a good little agent, covering all the bases even with a clearly tormenting urge to stay on a single one.

"Gone. That's all Cas said. The son of a bitch let him go… I don't know how. Or why. Maybe he'll explain better later."

The two of them stood in silence for a bit—both breathing heavily, both thinking and worrying about Natasha and both cursing themselves for how pathetic they'd been, for how they'd failed so utterly and completely, nearly gotten one of their friends killed in what was supposed to be an easy retrieval mission.

Hyde. Whoever and whatever he really was, Dean now harbored for him a seething and all-controlling hatred, of the type he hadn't felt since Lucifer had walked the earth. He had _known _that Tom Jackman was responsible from the start, sensed it somehow. And even if it was a different creature sharing the same body… what did it matter, even? He'd learned long ago to give up feeling sorry for the vessels of demons that had to be put down, and he honestly didn't see how this was any different.

Before he let that train of thought take him down any more dangerous of a track, there was a flutter in the air and Cas appeared again, his face drawn and his eyes dark.

"Where is she?" Clint demanded instantly, his eyes raking down the front of the angel's trench coat, which was ominously stained with dark red blotches of not-yet-dried blood. "Is she alright?"

"She will be fine," Cas promised, and Dean's stomach twisted in two directions at once—it was wonderful that Natasha was alive and had a future ahead of her, of course it was. But if she was fine, then that meant that the shadows cast over the angel's expression were there for a different reason—one that dominated even over the victory of keeping Natasha from death.

"God…" Clint slumped back, his eyes cast up at the ceiling and the muscles in his neck strained tight.

"I healed the worst of her injuries as soon as Fury saw what had become of her," the angel continued, his tone resonant with the monotone of retelling immediate events. "It will take time, however, for her to reach a full physical recovery, and a mental one as well. Though her mind is strong, it is not quite capable of resisting the shock that Hyde's damage inflicted."

"Fine, fine… as long as she's okay. Just… as long as she's okay."

Dean gulped as Cas nodded gently and turned then to him, his head tilting back and his back tensing with uncomfortable formality. "I was told to retrieve you and return immediately. Fury is… not happy with the product of our ventures."

This was clearly the thing that was weighing him down. Rather than being sickened at it, however, Dean only snorted, nothing more dangerous than a flame of frustration licking at him from the inside. "Fury? I don't think any of us give two craps what Fury wants at this point, to be honest, Cas."

"Regardless of whether or not you _give two craps, _he is the one in the most powerful position of us all—our boss, you could say," Castiel growled back. "And right now, he is incredibly angry."

"Finally broke his cool, huh?" Though still not particularly frightened by the notion, Dean did feel misery beginning to squeeze in his stomach—they had failed, yet again; almost gotten Natasha killed, at that, and now Fury was mad, too. "Whatever. Might as well face it sooner rather than later, right?" He glanced towards Clint, seeking agreement, but the archer's eyes were dark, and it was clear that he couldn't care less about what Fury had to say—the only thing important to him was Natasha, and as long as she was alive, he would manage.

Dean could remember a time like that all too vividly—a time when another person was the most important thing in the world, when nothing mattered as long as they were alive… Sam, of course. For him, it had been Sam.

But now Sam was dead, and nothing _did _matter.

That was what he told himself as he extended an arm, let Cas take it and closed his eyes and waited for the pressure of teleportation. And if he was lying to himself, there was no one to tell him.

* * *

"What the _hell _were you thinking?"

He didn't reply to the shout that assaulted his ears the moment the Director got them in a closed room. Clint had refused to come, instead dashing to the hospital ward and threatening to shoot the eye out of anyone who tried to stop him, and that had only worsened Fury's mood, so that now he was full-on incensed, his teeth bared and his pupils dilated, bellowing into Dean's face while Castiel stood nearby, his head down, the perfect portrait of shame.

"I asked you a _question, _Winchester."

"I wasn't really thinking at all, actually!" Dean spat back. "I was more concerned with the fact that one of _your _agents was about to _die_ to give much planning to the matter! I might have saved her life, alright?"

"You didn't save her life. Your damned angel did, and that's just about the only reason that I'm not giving him what I'm giving you."

"Nice reasoning, too. _He's _the one who let Hyde get away, not me!" Despite his best attempts to stay cool, anger was rising instead of Dean, too, and each word was bit off individually, fired like a bullet towards the scowling face of the Director. "_Him, _are you fucking deaf?"

"You'll talk to me with respect, Winchester!" Fury barked. "I am your _superior. _Valuing Romanoff over Hyde cost us what might be our only chance. Couldn't you have kept your head, just _once? _You have wasted everything, do you understand? An insane killer is on the loose again, and it doesn't _matter _that you saved Romanoff, because now more people are going to die, most likely many more. And you might as well have killed them, yourself."

Dean was silent for half a second, everything inside of him fuming until it boiled over. Instead of exploding, though, his anger swept over him in a dark cloud, dragging him into an odd sort of acceptance—sudden coldness seemed to be filling his bones, as though he'd gone over the brink, into a whole new sort of madness. At Hyde, at Cas, and now at Fury—all the way back to Lucifer, and Sam, and everything else that had started him down the path he was stranded on now.

"Fine," he said baldly, blankly. "Fine. I get it. I failed. Punish me however the hell you want to, see if I give a shit. Personally, I'm just glad that Natasha made it out alive. Because, believe it or not, I've done a lot of fighting on my own. I've known how to fire a gun since before I knew how to ride a damned bicycle, and I've taken advantage of that—I was forced to. I don't know anything about what you've been through, alright? But I know what I've been through. And that's one hell of a lot. I lost my mom, and my dad, and my brother. Just about everyone else who was important to me, too. And I did all that fighting for the _greater good. _I'm done with that. I'll help fight Hyde, of course I will. But until then, I'm done wasting time trying to protect people who I've never so much as seen in my goddamned life. Screw morality. I don't care about them as much as I do about the people who are close to me, and I'm not going to put more value on them. Understand?"

Fury stared at him for what felt like a long, long time after that—not speaking, not moving, just gazing in something that could have been admiration as easily as disgust. Rather than conflicting emotions, there was absolutely nothing on his scarred face—it had gone from blindingly ferocious to utterly blank in a matter of moments, and it stayed like that as the seconds swept by. Dean could feel his own heart pounding inside of his chest—not elevated in terms of speed, but heavy, very heavy, like a fist repeatedly darting out to bruise against the inside of his ribcage.

"Fine," Fury said finally, his tone just as pointedly calm as Dean's had been. "Fine. But you're still my man, Winchester. You're still going to follow the directions I give you to defeat Hyde, because you're a soldier. You agreed to that the instant you made the decision to join the Avengers."

There were another several seconds of silence, during which Dean gazed on in something that was almost amusement, feeling a deep gap in his stomach—something chillingly close to absolute uncaring. He had completely forgotten Cas's presence in the room—or, even if he was still aware of it in some depth that he didn't want to admit to himself, he was telling himself that he didn't care, that there was no reason why the angel should be any more important than the rest of the nothingness.

"Screw the Avengers," he said, and left the room.


	12. Breakpoint

**A/N** _Sorry about the missed week, I was on vacation. Also, thanks for the 50 reviews!_

**Thanks to **_tranland and mudkipz_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER XII. **_Breakpoint_

Rose Tyler knew Nick Fury very well—better than any of the rest of the team, perhaps, save Clint and Natasha. She didn't necessarily consider him to be her friend, but the fact that he was the first ally she'd made upon her return to this reality left a lasting impression. She trusted him, relied on him—even liked him, in lighter times. But as fond as she may have become of the Director, she was all too aware that he had a temper, too—a temper kept under control most of the time, of course, but a temper nonetheless, and one that she was far too sure was being let loose right about now.

She had spent the first part of the day with the Doctor, taking advantage of the slight lapse in activity to really talk with him, catch up as much as she could. And though he looked different, acted different from the Time Lord she had known, it didn't really matter; he was the same person, and surely nothing else was significant, not really.

Cas's return to SHIELD, though, had been all but quiet. The angel had exploded into existence inside the cold metal walls of the base, bearing a bloody Natasha and demanding that they all see her, that they all understand what the creature Hyde was capable of. It was chilling, certainly, and Rose had been more than a bit alarmed. Fury had hushed it up as much as possible, though—sent them back to their own devices, told Castiel with a tone like burning embers to go back, retrieve Barton and Winchester.

And that was where she was now. Nearly half an hour had passed, and the others surely must have returned by now. Rose had been keeping to herself since Cas's appearance, which meant going to her room, but the vortex-controlling power within her was beginning to itch; she'd held it back for too long, and now it was scratching and tickling the inside of her skin, demanding to be let out, released in an explosion of golden light, twisting through reality.

That—the constant, burning demand—was one of the many things about the energy within her that made it a burden more than a blessing to carry. Sometimes it was all so overwhelming that she wondered how she had survived it, its return—the mess that had blasted her out of her separate reality, back into this one with a blinding power that was meant to have left her years ago…

But she wasn't going to think about that right now, she reminded herself, taking a deep breath and starting down the hallway. Fury had found her then, when she was a chaotic tempest destroying everything within a few feet of her, and he had helped her learn how to take hold of the huge power, improvising just as much as she had been but proving useful nonetheless. One of the things that they had learned together was that she needed to keep it from boiling over, exert it every once in a while, and that the shooting ranges at SHIELD were the perfect places to do such a thing.

She knew the building fairly well, had even grown to like it, with its sleekness, abundance of technology, and businesslike air. It was familiar enough that the harsh change in atmosphere now was incredibly disconcerting—Natasha's injury and the team's defeat, apparently, was felt by all the agents, even those with no direct hand in it. The place was cold and quiet rather than bustling and busy, and it left an odd sort of coldness in her stomach as she paced down the endless hallways, her footsteps echoing in the silence that seemed to completely hush its usual ambient buzz.

She was far too relieved to reach the shooting range, but what she didn't expect was to find _him _there.

Dean Winchester. Recognizable immediately from his dark leather jacket, so different from the tight black suits that the majority of SHIELD's agents wore. His eyes were wide and intent, not so much as blinking as she stepped inside, and his arm was extended, strong and direct. Bullets spat from the mouth of the gun he clutched, boring erratically into the target on the other end of the thin tunnel. None were hitting the bull's eye—instead, they sprayed around in a haphazard circle, and it was clear that he was venting more than anything else, didn't consider this practice.

"He can be frustrating, can't he?" Rose spoke up, attempting to thicken her tone with as much sympathy as she could manage.

He didn't reply until his cartridge was emptied, and then lowered the gun slowly, never letting his arm or shoulder relax. His eyes remained fixed straight ahead, his jaw set as he replied in a low, quiet tone.

"It's all bullshit, you know? I can't work like this. In a team. It's not what I'm used to."

"First time for everything, right?"

He sighed, and his shoulders lost their terse posture as he took a couple of steps back and leaned against the wall, tilting the gun back and forth between his hands. He still refused to look in Rose's direction, but instead peered down the nose of the weapon, as if examining it for flaws. "I've been hunting with my dad since I was a kid. Then he died, and all I had was my brother. Then—then _he _died, and I've got no one. _No one._"

She wasn't sure what this small outburst was about—whether he was irritated at her or genuinely trying to offer her his story, perhaps even seek some sort of sympathy. She uncertainly assumed the second, moving a bit closer to him while keeping her distance from becoming intrusive.

"You have Castiel, right? He seems to… care about you, a lot."

"Cas isn't family. He's an idiot angel who doesn't know shit about what it's like to be human."

"But you love him."

The words spilled out before she could help it, and she immediately felt a flush creep under her skin. The observation, however accurate it may be, was definitely far beyond her own business—it was a step away from outright disrespectful to state something that plainly, she thought with an almost sick twist in her stomach. The Doctor and his social naïveté must be getting to her.

He didn't react, though—didn't snap a contrary remark, or laugh, or even do much of anything, really. Didn't so much as shrug. Just paused for a second—perhaps his gaze sharpened ever so slightly—and then went on talking as though she hadn't said anything at all.

"See, you've got your Doctor. He's like that. You're used to it."

"What, acting like an alien?" She did laugh then, tentatively. "He's pretty good, usually… but, yeah. Sometimes you just wonder how they function in a world like this."

"But he… he _rescued _you from your life, right? Isn't that what he does… picks up random companions, shows them the sights? It's all fun and games for you. Me, I kill things. That's been my job for pretty much as long as I can remember. I kill things, and everyone I care about dies, and it's an endless loop that I can never freaking escape. I don't _deserve _to escape it. Somebody needs to take that sort of weight, and, well, why not someone as damned as me?"

This was enough to silence her for a few seconds. Many of the Avengers, it seemed, really did have their dark sides—first Thor, now Dean; perhaps the two of them that she'd known the least, and suspected the least of, both dumping stories onto her that carried more weight than she'd believed the men capable of bearing. Who else's past was so darkened? John's? Tony's?

_All of theirs, _she realized with a slight start. All of theirs. People didn't become heroes—super-humans, genius detectives, world-saving aliens—by choice. They became that way because they were forced into it, and maybe that was why they were all here, really—because they had been forced into it, and because they knew it was their job to make sure no one else ever had to suffer in the same way. Soldiers surrounded by martyrs, with a duty to claim and no way out.

Somehow, it wasn't a depressing thought. It almost energized her—to think that they had a reason, a purpose, that they were needed in this world, just as people like them were in every other one.

"It doesn't matter how I got here," she murmured. "He rescued me, sure. But he was also the reason that I ended up separated from my home _universe_, for years. And whatever you may say about Castiel—however… however much you may think that he's useless, or even weighing you down… he makes you happy, too. I've seen the way you look at him. And that's what the people we care about do, I think—they hurt us just as much as they heal us. And… to be torn apart, over and over again, but then sewed up again even stronger… that's worth more than to just stay unchanging all of your existence. You and I, and all the rest of our team… we're not like the loads of other people that just pass through each day without really caring. We're _living _our lives, and that… that has to count for something, right?"

Dean's face twisted into a bitter scowl, as if he was all too ready to contradict her, but something—maybe one of the phrases she'd uttered, or the intensity of her tone, or their situation as a whole—caused him to pause, his eyes to clear.

"Yeah," he mumbled, almost uncomfortably. "I… I guess it does."

Rose let out a breath that she hadn't realized herself to be holding, and the smile that flew to her lips now was far less tentative than her previous expressions. He glanced up, meeting her gaze for the first time, and his own mouth twitched, just barely, into something that might have been a ghost of the grin that she saw on him so rarely.

If he was going to say anything more, though—and she was, admittedly, beginning to hope that he might—it was violently cut off by the door banging open. Rose jumped and whirled around, and Dean's arm reflexively jerked up, the empty gun barrel directed towards the figure that now stood hunched in the partially open door.

Natasha was standing, somehow, her hair hanging in her face and her eyes darkened but open nonetheless; the bruises masking her face were pale, as if several days old. Rose's jaw dropped slightly—though she'd never gotten an glance of the injured Natasha herself, she knew that the assassin had been alarmingly wounded, enough so that she was rushed to the hospital almost immediately after Castiel's delivery of her, leaving nothing behind but blood dotting the hallway and an especially solemn look on Director Fury's face.

"You—you're alright," she observed in wonder, delight swelling in her chest. Though she didn't know Natasha Romanoff particularly well, she was at least more familiar with her than with the rest of the Avengers—the two of them had both been SHIELD agents for a while, and even if their bond was strictly professional, it nonetheless resulted in a sort of closeness to be working side by side for so long, especially in such a dangerous area.

"Barely," Natasha growled through her teeth. It was clear that it pained her to stand like this—and not just stand; she must have walked there herself. There was certainly no one backing her. "Listen—I was in the hospital ward—"

"No _shit _you were," Dean snapped, finally lowering his gun arm as he seemed to break out of a sort of baffled daze. "That's where you belong, idiot. We're never going to get anywhere if mortally injured people decide to just get up and—"

"Shut up," Natasha replied sharply, but Rose didn't miss the surprise that flashed in her green eyes—surprise at the tone of Dean's voice, which seemed to be approaching what just might be concern for the woman he'd claimed to hate. "Your angel healed me just fine. I'm tired. That's it." She paused for a fraction of a second, forcibly raising one eyebrow in mock casualty to check if either of the other two intended to make any farther objection. When her action was met only with silence, she plowed on resolutely. "They thought I was asleep—I heard them talking, though. Fury came in to check on me, Hill was with him—they've spotted him," she got out, finally cutting to the chase with a stifled sort of gasp. "Hyde. They've got a camera on him again."

"Then why the hell is it you that's telling us, and not them?" Dean demanded, wariness sweeping over his features. Rose, as well, felt a light quiver of unease—there was no reason that Fury should keep the location of their enemy from them, was there?

"Because they don't want you to know. They don't want any of us to know." Natasha scowled, her chest heaving, and it was painfully clear that her exhaustion was beginning to tax her—but she forced herself to stand up tall, releasing the door frame and lifting her chin, and it was clear that her own weakness didn't matter to her. She had a job to do, and that was what mattered. "He doesn't trust us."

"Doesn't trust us?" Dean repeated. His voice was almost frighteningly slow, and burned with all the more severity for being so.

"Apparently we handled the situation poorly with Hyde last time. He's… afraid, I think, of losing more of us."

"Oh, hell no," Dean murmured. He inhaled, long and slow, and his head tilted down for a moment, eyes tracing the curves of the empty gun still clasped in his hand. His lips curled slowly. Rose felt a sort of anger murmuring in the pit of her own stomach—she had disagreed with the Director on some accounts in the past, but this was touching absurdity. He had only ever sent out small teams of them at once—why on Earth shouldn't they all be able to make it together? They were the Avengers, after all.

They were a team.

"_Hell _no!" Dean repeated, and this time it was a shout, a blaze in his eyes as he suddenly jerked his head up with a raging intensity in every muscle. "I'm not doing this. I'm not dealing with this _bullshit _any longer!"

Natasha's mouth twitched—just barely, the corner of her thin lips twisting upwards, melding her formerly grim expression into something coolly appreciative. "That," she got out between heaving breaths, "was exactly the reaction I was hoping for, Mr. Winchester."

"Happy to please," he tossed back, half-sarcastic. Then he turned to Rose, took a few steps to close the distance between them, and reached out, taking her wrist. "You're ready for this, right?" he demanded.

She hesitated, anxiety prickling the underside of her lungs once more. "Ready for what?"

"This. I don't know about you, but I'm done with this. Really _done. _It was bad enough that he treated us like shit, that he decided we were all under his control, but this—he could be risking lives, just because he thinks we're not powerful enough. I don't care whether he thinks there's another team out there, whether he knows someone else that he think will do better, _what fucking ever. _We _are _capable of this. We're stronger than he thinks. We defeated the _Devil, _for Christ's sake."

"So?" Rose questioned, her eyes wide. She knew what he was getting at, of course—naturally, she did, but it was hard. It had always been hard for her to go against direct orders. Even back with the Doctor—not the current bubbly Doctor, or the previous shaggy-haired one, but rather the tall, leather-jacketed man that had first introduced himself as a Time Lord—when he was trapped, when he sent her back in time with the TARDIS, it had taken all of her courage not to give up like he demanded her to. She had tried, at first, to do as he said, tried so damn hard, but for nothing. And it was her desperation then that had prompted her to look into the TARDIS itself, to first gain the powers that had been momentarily suppressed before raging back all the more fiercely.

And she could feel those powers within her now, snarling and rustling, still not released like they'd first been demanding to when she'd initially arrived at the range. She'd been interrupted by Dean, and now by Natasha, and the energy within her was positively raging for release; release that, it seemed, was contained in the all too tempting opportunity that was now confronting her.

"You know what," he replied simply. "Will you come with us?"

_Us, _automatically, because Natasha had come for a reason. Because he understood her motivations just as clearly as Rose understood his, because they were beginning to attach to each other, pick up on the mind patterns laced throughout their team. "Us" was probably the most powerful word that Dean could have possibly used, and it was more than enough to tilt Rose over the edge, to morph her uncertain frown into a wide grin.

"Of course I will," she said, her stomach tightening with the weight of her words.

His face hardened into proud resolve, and then he turned, releasing Rose and reaching out for Natasha's arm instead. "Don't," he snapped when the redhead began to object, attempting to pull back. "You're weak, alright? Nothing wrong with that. We can get Cas to give you a little extra boost when we get everyone together."

"Are we getting everyone together, then?" Rose questioned, hurrying after him into the still alarmingly desolate hallways. Natasha scrambled along as gracefully as she could, admittedly helped more than hindered by Dean's grip on her bicep.

"Of course we are," Dean shot back. "If this is our chance to prove Fury wrong, we might as well do it thoroughly, right?"

She shook her head, but not in disagreement, and went on to move even faster, half-running after the hunter and the assassin as they finally took their first steps towards resistance—towards triumph.


	13. Liftoff

**A/N** _In response to a question, as (I hope!) I established earlier, the TARDIS is currently somewhere stranded in the time vortex, since Rose pulled the Doctor from it and left it in the Master's care. _

**Thanks to **_TimeLadyofTARDIS, Fangirling37, and mudkipz_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER XIII. **_Liftoff_

The Doctor sprang up in surprise, shifting against the hard wall beside which he'd been sitting. A sharp buzz suddenly filled the air—it took him a moment to target it as coming from a speaker perched on the wall. Some sort of communication device, he realized, clambering more gracefully onto his feet and creeping over in curiosity. There were no distinct words coming from it—instead, it was only vague white noise that spluttered throughout the room shared by him and Rose. He'd been sitting inside of it for a while now, silent and pondering after her wordless departure. Her bed was rumpled, a pile of sheets and a stray pillow, while he'd arranged his own perfectly out of what wasn't quite boredom—restlessness, more; uselessness was harder to feel while busy, even with the most trivial of tasks.

Now, however, his startled jerk shoved the sheets messily to the side. He stepped towards the static-filled speaker, reaching instinctively into his jacket and pulling out his screwdriver. Its glowing green tip tilted towards the vibrating mesh, and the sound coalesced and trembled, shifting into a bout of scattered, barely-audible words.

_"Avengers—report—room—repeat—conference room—immediately—"_

It was most definitely not the voice of Director Nick Fury.

Dean. Dean Winchester, sounding more determined than anything the Doctor had ever heard from him, proud in a way that carried none of the anger—nothing but pure, youthful strength. And the Doctor knew, in that moment, that something had changed—that something vital had shifted, and now there was nowhere to go but forwards.

He twitched the screwdriver again, hopefully shifting the function enough to allow his own words to carry through to the other side.

"Dean," he murmured back, through a grin curving the corners of his lips. "I'm ready, mate. I'm coming."

* * *

"Listen." Dean's word was loud, clear, and distinct, filling the whole room of wide-eyed, assembled heroes. All of them—from Sherlock to Tony, Castiel to Rose—were watching, energized, intent, for perhaps the first time in all of their reunion. There was a palpable air of resolve to the room; an almost physical bond that seemed to hum between each of them. Perhaps the seemingly sudden connection had come from the pain of Natasha's near-loss, or maybe it was due to their finally revolting, finally standing out against Fury. Whatever the cause, the Doctor, for the first time in very, very long, felt far from lonely and isolated.

He felt like part of a team.

"Listen!" Dean repeated, lifting his chin, nearly shouting in an effort to magnify his voice to every corner in the room. It was unnecessary to speak again, but far from useless—his voice shot strength through the Doctor's bloodstream, nearly chilled him with its vehement courage and fire. "You all know what happened. You all know that some of us went to try and capture Hyde, and that he was more than we ever expected—he hurt us. _All _of us."

Natasha's face shifted ever so slightly—an expression that was an odd, uncharacteristic mix of surprise and gratitude. She had expected to be singled out, targeted for what could be interpreted as weakness, and perhaps even a day ago, Dean would have done as much. And yet he spared her now, willingly, for no reason other than what must be genuine friendship.

"It was because we weren't strong enough. We had a damned _angel, _and we weren't strong enough. For Fury—for SHIELD—that was proof that we aren't powerful enough. He thinks that we're _weak _because we weren't sufficient. But do you know what?"

Tension was permeable in the air, warm and sharp and static, and the Doctor barely allowed himself to breathe. Every one of them was silent, even Sherlock, even Tony. Dean allowed that to last for perhaps three more seconds, then brought his hand down on the table, heavily, deafeningly.

"We are _not!" _Dean shouted, his green eyes vivid, practically glowing. "We are not weak. We are the strongest team on the _planet, _and we know that, even if Fury doesn't. There's a reason that all our forces are combined, and that reason is that we aren't supposed to be a bunch of scattered groups. We aren't supposed to be pairs, or trios, or what the _hell _ever. We aren't meant to be split up, because we are the Avengers, and we are a _team! _We are not going to split that team up any longer. We are going to go after Hyde one more time, and we are going to _defeat _him!"

The response wasn't a yell, or a cheer, or anything like that. It was the nearly soundless whisper of fabric as Castiel—eyes hard and bright, shoulders straight, fingers curled into what were nearly loose fists—stood up, breath hissing from his lips, and stared straight at Dean, locking eyes, azure to emerald, emerald to azure.

Neither of them said anything, and they didn't have to. It was only a few seconds—a few purely, entirely motionless seconds—before Rose, next to the Doctor and a few seats away from Castiel, placed her hands evenly on the table, pushing herself into a standing position just as strong as the angel's. Her stare wasn't as definite—she glanced around at the rest, brown eyes wide and warm but none weaker than the rest of theirs. Her full lips tilted up just around the corner, into a smile that could have meant a million things, and that was all that the Doctor needed—he copied her action in a single smooth movement, his lungs shaking with adrenaline, overwhelming energy from the utter concentrated power of each and every individual in the room.

And after that, it was all in a rush. Tony, then John, and Sherlock; Bruce, Steve, Clint, Natasha, Thor. None of them said a word—none of them _had _to, because this was enough. Their actions expressed everything that they couldn't voice.

Sherlock was the first to speak, his strong baritone ringing through the still air. "We need a plan," he announced, pale eyes shifting through the crowd, "but we don't have much time. Barton, Romanoff, find his location. Winchester, Castiel, make sure Fury doesn't get a whiff of what's going on. The rest of you…" His lips, formerly set in a straight line, tilted up at one corner. "Suit up."

The others didn't need a second prompt. It was almost surreal how they all moved—like a single organism, dashing in perfect fluidity to the doors of the room and filing out in brisk haste. Eagerness twisted inside the Doctor's stomach, and he reached out, instinctively grasping Rose's forearm. She glanced back towards him—she really was beautiful, with her wide eyes and soft lips and flushed cheeks. The fierceness of just how much he really had missed her roared suddenly in his chest; it wasn't just her as a person that he had felt such a raging absence of. It was this—all of this, the thrill of having a mission and her at his side in accompaniment. Of course there had been the other companions, Martha, Donna, Amy, Rory, but Rose had a vibe to her that none of the rest had ever quite captured. It was her, after all, who had rescued his most scarred, war-torn incarnation from the sort of self-hatred that could only ever rip a man apart. Her, with her pink and gold brilliance, with her sunny grin and innocence even within all-knowing.

She had saved him, and then he had lost her. And somehow, after all that, after the pain and the numbness and the denial and the desperation, she had come back. Leaving them here, now—together, facing unearthly danger again.

It felt right.

And it couldn't be clearer that she agreed, as she slipped her arm up, moving his grip to her hand and cinching their fingers tight. Her teeth glinted in a smile that was both shy and comfortable at the same time, and her eyes shone—shone golden, in fact, a sudden reminder that she was changed—at least as changed as him, at least as empowered.

"You ready, then?" he asked gently.

"More than I've been in just about all of my life," she replied with a giggle. Her fingers squeezed even tighter, and an unmistakable electric shock surged along his skin. He raised his eyebrows, chuckling and swinging her arm back and forth as he turned around to face Sherlock, the only one other than John left in the room.

"We can figure out the transportation," he announced, "since we don't exactly have any sort of… suiting up to do, am I right?"

Rose ducked her head in a quick nod.

"I suppose you don't have the TARDIS," Sherlock agreed, critically but not insultingly. "Very well. We'll need helicopters—there's no reason to tax Castiel's powers before we even begin the attack. Be ready in a half hour—the larger the craft, the better; it would be ideal if we could all go in a single vehicle. You'll need a way to contact us, say where you are—" He sighed, then reached over to a surprised-looking John and removed what appeared to be a completely mundane mobile phone, shoving it into Rose's free hand and ignoring the blonde doctor's protests. "Call me. I believe I'm on speed-dial—three, isn't it?"

The ensuing eye-roll from John was rather spectacular.

"Right, then. I'll assume you know what you're doing, and… hurry off, then," the Doctor agreed, waving his free hand vaguely before whisking around towards the door. "Hijacking the biggest aircraft we can find—easy, right?"

"Do you _know _how to control a SHIELD copter?" Rose asked incredulously, following him out of the room and down the still mostly-abandoned hallway.

"Oh, I've piloted plenty of ships in my time," the Doctor dismissed. "How different can it be from anything else?"

"Well, it's going to be plenty different from the TARDIS, that's for sure."

"Shush," he chuckled, playfully cuffing at her ear. She dodged with a yelp, and the two of them couldn't help but continue to laugh as they dashed through the hallway. It took a few minutes of ducking into random rooms and moving up and down various elevators, guided only by Rose's meager knowledge of the expansive military base, but before too long they managed to find themselves behind a thick glass door, the only thing separating them from a wide, windy deck housing all matter of aircrafts.

"Excellent," the Doctor murmured, flipping up his screwdriver and giving it a quick buzz up and down the door's silver lock, made clearly to fit a keycard. The small amber light on its side winked green, and he shoved the door open with his shoulder, buffeted immediately by a harsh gust of cold breeze. It only increased his invigoration with its chilled bite, and he wasted no time in hurtling across the concrete surface, weaving between the sleek forms of the machines. His twin hearts raced—even if Dean and Cas had managed to fulfill their job of keeping Fury distracted, he or one of the other agents would almost certainly have noticed that something was amiss by now—that the agents were up to something far from lawful.

"Any of them that stick out in particular to you?" he asked of Rose, spinning around with his arms wide to gesture to the variety. She bit her lip for a brief moment, eyes flaring gold once more with what was more likely to be general energy than anything specifically focused on the task at hand.

"They're all pretty small," she pointed out, half-shouting over the turbulent wind that didn't seem to have any definite source. "Maybe try a little farther down?"

"Right you are." He continued to run along, peeking between the seemingly endless rows, his stomach tightening with each passing second. Though he wasn't about to show it in his jubilant attitude, he was growing more than a little anxious—at least ten minutes had gone by already, probably more like fifteen, and they hadn't even found a—

An aircraft…

It was far more gorgeous than anything he'd ever expect to find at a military base. Rather than an armed, weapon-oriented vehicle, the plane he now regarded was long, sleek, and clearly made with transportation the only thing in mind. Its sides gleamed a dark charcoal grey, reflecting the sparkling daylight in swoops of navy blue and dense violet that hinted at an undertone to what initially appeared to be solid paint. It was windowless, but a single door stood clearly outlined against its thin, metallic body, almost inviting.

Without thinking, the Doctor found his fingers moving towards the heavy silver handle affixed to the door. It was half a moment later that Rose came dashing around the last corner, her hair wild and her eyes bright—"Doctor!" she called out, and skidded to a halt as soon as she saw the magnificent machine he'd encountered.

"…Wow," she breathed, gaze repeatedly flickering up and down its length.

"Perfect, eh?" he asked in delight, running his screwdriver up and down the door's seal. It popped open like the hatch of a car, and he swung it on its heavy hinges, revealing what looked like the interior of a posh jet. Leather seats were arranged in semi-circles, with sleek metallic tables perched beside them, and a dark velvety curtain obscured what was presumably the entrance to the cockpit.

"Bit fancy for SHIELD, don't you think?" Rose laughed, her tone laced with giddiness.

"Just a bit," the Doctor agreed vaguely, running a hand through his hair in breathless excitement as he sprung inside. "Come on, then—no time to waste!"

"You're sure we want this one?" Rose checked, though she seemed far from against the notion, herself. "It's a bit… luxurious, don't you think, for what's really just a routine—"

"I'll be able to fix up anything about it that doesn't quite suit our needs," the Doctor chirped back, spinning his screwdriver as a reminder. "This old girl's gone through a few boosts, lately—mostly for the Master's benefit; he can fly my TARDIS, so I need something that'll help me keep up with him if he does have a bad day and decide to take off. It took time to develop, of course, but with the help of this, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to get to London, or wherever Hyde might be now. We might as well travel in as much comfort as possible."

Rose shook her head in amused disbelief, but didn't object again as she carefully shut the door behind her. It slid into position with a satisfying squelch, and the Doctor hurried through the carpeted cabin, tearing aside the curtain as soon as he reached the end and finding himself surrounded by all matter of blinking, flashing, and tweeting controls. They lined the place from floor to ceiling, and it suddenly looked much more like a classic spaceship than a luxury liner.

She entered moments later, and her jaw immediately fell open. "Are you… sure you'll be able to figure this out?" she checked, looking about in wonder. All matter of lights reflected over her face, red and green, blue and violet, yellow and magenta.

None of the lights meant a thing to the Doctor, of course, but he saw a number of joysticks, levers, and wheels clustered near the front and immediately decided that they were the only thing concerning him. "None of this really matters," he decided, buzzing his screwdriver almost absentmindedly along the stacks of electronics. "All little things to be tweaked with, and that's not our problem. We just need to alter the _biggest _aspect of this—that is, let it travel in time as well as space."

"So when you say that we'll get there in a couple of hours…" Rose started, seeming to catch on.

"A few hours according to Hyde's timeline. Less, if we can make it, but I'm afraid I haven't necessarily perfected this to that kind of level yet." He swiped the reinforced screwdriver towards what was clearly the motherboard of the controls, and for one paralyzing moment, every light in the compartment flashed bright red, a transition accompanied by a sharp buzzing sound. Rose raised her hands over her ears in wide-eyed alarm, but he just waited, bouncing up and down with impatience, for perhaps three seconds before the whining noise died off. One at a time, each of the small, glowing pinpricks switched to vivid green—all an identical shade matching that of his screwdriver tip, rather than the rainbow from before.

"Is that… good?" Rose questioned meekly.

"Doesn't matter whether it's good or bad," the Doctor replied brightly, leaning forward and seizing the largest lever he could see. "It's what we need."

He yanked it back, and the aircraft upended.

Rose shrieked and the Doctor whooped as the darkened windshield before them suddenly cleared, blackness disappearing into a wide glassy stretch with a delightfully clear view of the sky. He'd jerked violently enough to send them almost straight up into the air, and a rather alarming screeching noise ran from the concrete surface that they departed from, probably damaging the end of the craft. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, hands instinctively flying over the controls with the kind of expertise that only a centuries-old pilot could ever master. It took seconds for the foreign layout to become familiar—a very violent few seconds, of course, full of nausea and with no small amount of pained yelps, but the result was satisfying enough; he managed to turn them around and into an even run, looping the plane back towards the suddenly small-looking expanse of SHIELD's base.

"Alright," the Doctor breathed, his eyes wide and his lungs shaking with gleeful speed. "Let's go get the others."


	14. Tempestuous

**A/N** _Second to last chapter!_

**Thanks to **_Kathrin J Pearl, Alex, mudkipz, and Guest_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER XIV. **_Tempestuous_

"I think I've got him," Dean mumbled, his head ducked and his eyes cast down. The earpiece, a number of which had been acquired by Natasha before they left in the Doctor's ridiculous choice of freakish airplane-type thing, crackled only briefly before Sherlock's voice came back, dark and swift and intent.

"Think, or do? There's no room for mistakes at this point, Winchester."

He spared a brief glance up, dragging in a longer look at the slim figure across the alleyway from him. They'd managed to find Hyde holed up in none other than London itself—conveniently, in a very specific and mostly run-down outskirt of the vast city, which is where they were now. Some hidden, others, including Sherlock, waiting and directing from the plane, with the screens discovered within it hooked up to cameras positioned on the fighters. Natasha and Clint had managed to dredge up all manner of useful technology in the few minutes that Sherlock, having assumed the position of leadership, allowed them, and they were well-equipped now—or at least as much so as they'd have to be to bring this freak down.

"Definitely him," he decided, scrutinizing the slim-shouldered form across from him. Hyde was mostly in shadow, leaning against an alley wall with his head tilted down, but the profile and body shape, illuminated by the smoggy reddish grey of the sunset, were unmistakable. Dean quickly continued to walk by, making sure to stay as unnoticeable as possible—he certainly didn't want to attract Hyde's attention, not before he knew what the hell he was supposed to react to a potential attack. For an attack there would be; Hyde was certainly going to recognize him, if his mind was anywhere near as sharp as all their sources implied. "What do you want me to do?"

"…Be _careful_," Sherlock murmured, though the eagerness in his clipped tones was still audible, running barely under the surface. The cold-natured detective, despite himself, was just as excited to see how their attempt would play out as the rest of them. "Very careful. But if Romanoff is in position—"

"I am," Natasha cut over, her voice hushed.

"Good. Then shoot."

_Shoot, right. _"Got it." That would be a change of plans, then. He didn't stop to consider his options—that much could waste vital time. Instead, he slipped a hand under his jacket even as he spun around, and Hyde's snap-quick reaction—even from across the street—would have killed him if he didn't already have the gun out, cocked and aimed. It was almost terrifying how fast the human-looking man moved—had the narrow street not been entirely deserted, it would have drawn no matter of attention. Hyde practically _flew, _his eyes focusing on the weapon in Dean's hand and his lean muscles moving in reaction, moving swiftly across the road with one hand extended forward and an absolutely wild look in his eyes.

"Definitely him!" Dean managed to gasp, squeezing the trigger as hard as he possibly could. The bang was deafening, and a spurt of red appeared immediately on Hyde's white shirt—he froze inches away, close enough that Dean could see a number of shocked, confused emotions flit over his dark-eyed face.

Rather than crumpling moments later, though, he only paused, his movements and speechlessness uncannily akin to those of the wild animal that he was, and slowly tilted his head like a curious child.

"A bullet, really?" he breathed, a smirk curling the corner of his mouth—the displayed teeth below were alarmingly sharp. He looked vastly the same as he had in the jail cell—and the memory of the jail cell, of what he had done to Natasha, caused Dean's stomach to twist in fury—disbelieving, he fired another sharp shot, which hit Hyde's chest straight on. He jerked briefly, then shook his head, grin glinting in the twilight. "Ooh, nice try, but you're going to have to work just a _bit _harder!"

Before Dean had time to so much as cry out, Hyde was closing the last of the distance between them, and Dean had no doubt that his neck would have been snapped if not for the flash of black and ginger streaking suddenly before him, knocking the other creature off-course with a well-placed series of hits. Hyde stumbled backwards, coughing, with his hands at his windpipe, and Natasha skidded to a halt on the sidewalk, hair half-cast over her darkened eyes, a coldly pleased expression fixed onto her pale features.

"It'll be easiest on all of us if you give up," she snapped at Hyde, who looked at her like a wounded puppy, his fingers still brushing against his neck. Dean cocked his gun again to emphasize the point, ignoring his racing heart in favor of a stoic expression shot towards their quarry.

"Give up?" He didn't speak the words, not quite, but they were clear on his lips, which then quirked up into a bubbling explosion of almost hacking laughter. The harsh shake of his shoulders caused the blood flow over his shirt to thicken, and he threw his head back, positively howling, something out of a horror movie with the scarlet stains in his white shirt entirely harmless, radiating wicked joy. "Give up, how _adorable! _Darling, you have _no _idea what you're up against this time around."

"We killed the goddamn Devil," Dean shot back, beginning to pace. "I think we've got a bit of one."

Hyde tilted his head almost lethargically to catch Dean's eye, and, in a slight, sharp movement, raised a single eyebrow—he was teasing, taunting, _inviting. _

Then, in a dark flash, he was gone entirely.

"Shit!" Dean snapped, gaze raking the empty streets. "Anyone see him?" he demanded into his earpiece.

"Negative," came the voice of Steve Rogers, the one situated nearest to them.

"Rose," Sherlock demanded, "there are a few civilians headed your way. Close them off—in fact, close off the whole place. We need to trap him, and the buildings are mostly rubbish anyways."

"The whole place?" Rose echoed, sounding rather horrified even through the tinny filter of the communications device.

"Around the perimeters where we have people stationed. Can you manage it?"

"I can try…"

"Try. Castiel, give her some help."

Almost immediately, the earth began to rattle beneath them. Dean's eyes widened, and he looked over at Natasha, whose chest was still heaving—evidently, her earlier wounds, healed as they had been, were still having a bit of a tax on her. She stared down at the ground in disbelief, seemingly just as stunned as he was. They weren't given much time to wonder at what could possibly be occurring—if whether and how Rose could be the one causing it—because John's voice was suddenly in their ears, soft but excited.

"I've got him! He's nearly out—Tony, Thor, can you do something?"

"Thor, block him," Sherlock barked. "Delay him at least until Tyler brings the walls down, then we can pull everyone together."

"What do you mean, _walls?_" Dean snapped, his patience beginning to wear thin.

It was Cas who replied—sounding slightly strained; doubtless, he was obeying Sherlock's orders and assisting Rose in whatever bizarre endeavor they had begun. "Buildings, Dean. The city is nearly entirely abandoned around these parts—we need to find a way to close Hyde in."

"We're building a barricade," Clint offered darkly, "with our enemy inside of it."

Something about the wording both chilled and energized Dean all at once, and he took in a deep breath of the cold evening air, which had almost completely grayed out as the last whispers of sun drowned behind the unforgiving pillars of distant skyscrapers. "Where should we head for?" he asked, sidling up to Natasha and glancing her almost absentmindedly up and down for injuries as he slipped his gun into a firing position again.

"Northeast," Sherlock shot back. "Thor, do you have him?"

"He's been diverted for the time being," the Asgardian bellowed, the volume of his voice striking the speakers and causing a soft explosion of static. It was reassuring to hear him so empowered again—so different from the hollow shell that he'd seemed to have become in Loki's absence.

"Where the hell is northeast?" Dean demanded.

Sherlock's sigh of frustration was all too clearly carried across. "Cross the street and take a left."

He proceeded to do so, feet skipping on the asphalt as it rocked and creaked. Massive banging in the distance was making it all too clear what Cas and Rose were doing—with the combination of their angelic Grace and harnessed vortex energy, they were literally ripping down the buildings around them, forming a barrier that even Hyde couldn't get across. They were crushing the outline of the small sector of the city they'd worked themselves into—and anyone inside was becoming trapped, just as they were.

"How many people do we have within the limits?" he hissed, worry spiking in his chest as a chorus of yells emerged from several blocks over. As desolate an area as they'd managed to situate themselves in, there were nonetheless still _people _here, people who could get hurt if Hyde was able to reach them—or if the falling buildings were more deadly than planned.

"Too many," Sherlock breathed.

"Should we stop?" Rose gasped. She was clearly exhausted, worn down from what must be an absolutely monstrous effort.

There wasn't so much as a hint of sympathy in the detective's voice. "No."

Dean's stomach tightened, but he made no protest, and the Doctor's line remained as silent as ever—apparently, even he had put aside his strongly peaceful tendencies to allow Sherlock absolute superiority. They'd all accepted the genius detective as their leader, and they weren't going to stop, not even when he endangered so many lives. They needed to trust him. They had no other choice.

"You doing alright?" he questioned of Natasha, too low for the mouthpiece to pick up, upon noticing a slight limp in her gait.

"Managing," she replied coolly. "Interesting gun-firing technique, by the way. Admirable."

It took him a moment before he realized what she was referring to—when shooting Hyde, he'd used the exact method of grip and aim that she'd taught him, the one that he'd protested against so heavily. He half-laughed, caught between acting humble and superior, and was rewarded by Sherlock's snap in his ear.

"Focus, Winchester! You're approaching the area where Hyde is. Rogers, you're the closest to him. He's to your right and front, about two o' clock."

"Got him," Steve said quickly.

"Good. The rest of you are all headed in the right direction, keep your eyes open… as soon as he's in your sights, make sure you're hidden. Stealth is _essential _now—we can't afford to mess up again. Right now he's staying put because we've locked him in, but if given long enough, he'll be able to scale those collapsed buildings, and then we'll be back where we started, with a few million pounds' worth of property damage to boot."

It was a severe enough warning, and Dean was silent as he crept in closer, squinting amongst the narrow, smoky forms of the still-standing buildings. Eventually, he was able to make out a faintly dark structure a block or two away—it was hard to see through the abundance of dust in the air, but it certainly looked as though it could be the collapsed wreckage of a particularly massive skyscraper or two, reduced to heaps of rubble only a few tens of meters high. Impressive, but Sherlock was right—it wouldn't hold Hyde off for long.

Hyde.

There he was, and Dean noticed him all at once, thrusting a hand out to stop Natasha from coming in any closer. She fell to an immediate halt, every muscle in her body radiating tension.

He looked just as normal as he had in the alleyway, eyes wide and dark, an almost neutral expression on his sharp-featured face. The barest hint of one of those twisted smiles hovered around his lips, and as he looked back and forth across the shapes and shadows of the ghost town surrounding him, it was painfully clear that he knew all too well what was waiting for him in the twilit landscape.

"Come and get me, then!" he trilled, swerving back and forth with his hands tucked neatly behind his back. His shirt, previously nothing more than a vague outline in the darkness, glinted with patches of blood—more of them. Another trail of the scarlet liquid, Dean noticed with narrowed eyes, was creeping down the side of his face and down his jaw from some point beneath his dark hairline—its source seemingly as harmless as the rest of the wounds streaking his body. "I know you're there… I can _smell _you…"

Dean scowled, unable to help but wonder whether that was true.

"Is there anyone who doesn't have a clear shot at him?" Sherlock demanded, his voice beginning to heat up from its typical cool fluidity. The response was deadly silence, and his tone took on something dark and excited as he issued the next commands. "Good. We know that bullets are useless—it's safe enough to assume that arrows are, as well. Castiel, then—see if you can crush him."

"Wait!" the Doctor suddenly exploded, his voice frantic, all of the anxiety from the battle brought into the single syllable as he finally gave in and spoke. There was a series of rustles and sharp mutterings that made it clear the two of them were sharing the same room, and quite possibly the same communications device, back on the plane. "Wait. We don't want him dead."

"Of course we want him dead!" Dean breathed, then immediately regretted it as Hyde's head swiveled around, straight towards him. He was suddenly furious with himself for not choosing a better hiding place than the side of the slim alleyway that he and Natasha had approached through—because now the damn thing was staring him straight down, and its smile tilted up again, head oscillating in delight.

"Want me dead, do you?" Hyde barked, his voice much rougher than before.

"Damn it!" Sherlock snarled, and then the Doctor's voice was there, raw with desperation that pounded its way into Dean's mind as Hyde slunk closer at a terrifyingly leisurely pace.

"Listen—keep him alive, we _need _him alive! Fury wants him, and this will be entirely useless if he's nothing but charred remains. Do what you must to subdue him, but _keep him alive!_"

More might have been said, but Dean didn't hear it, because he was pointing and firing his gun again in a single smooth movement, air rushing out of his lungs as the hastily aimed bullet skated over Hyde's shoulder, ripping the white fabric and unleashing a spurt of blood that splattered over his beam-stretched jaw.

"Oh, you'll have to be quicker than _that,_" he whined, and lunged forwards.

Dean dropped completely, his knees hitting the ground and his hair lifting at the breeze of Hyde's hands closing over empty space. He cursed under his breath and rolled sideways, gun clutched close to his chest, but didn't manage to get far before there were talon-like nails around his collar, jerking him roughly up and then continuing to lift, straining, so that his feet parted with the ground and the fabric tightened around his throat.

He tried to gasp, but couldn't drag a lick of air through his compressed windpipe. Hyde's delighted face was visible through watering eyes, dotted with fluctuating patches of black, and Dean kicked forwards desperately, hoping for any sort of contact that might weaken the grip of his enemy, but there was nothing. Sherlock's shouted instructions thundered in his ears, but his head was too muddled to distinguish them as anything more than a vague hum of headache-inducing static.

"I could always just snap your neck," the demented creature mused, his velvety voice clear in contrast to Sherlock's, "but this is so much _fun, _isn't it?"

"Hyde!"

The yell was practically unrecognizable, as primitively raw as it was, in contrast to the quiet, steady speech that Dean was used to. The flash of white light that grazed Hyde's side, however, was unmistakable, and he yelped in shocked pain a moment later, folding sideways as his hands flew to the injury. Dean inhaled fully and gratefully, half-slumping to the ground himself and reaching for the gun that had slipped from his hands. His neck ached horribly, but he forced himself to ignore it, instead stumbling to his feet and taking several wide steps backwards. His eyes immediately sought out Castiel, and he located the blue-eyed angel moments later, his hands curled into fists around with a pale hint of white fire raged, creeping up his forearms, almost to his elbows. Dean had no idea what this new, bizarre energy was, but he chose not to question it—angels, after all, surely had powers ranging far beyond any of those that Castiel showed on a day-to-day basis.

Hyde choked out a laugh, his fingers falling away from his wounded side to reveal that the flesh was absolutely charred, _blackened _with the heat of Cas's power. "Is that all you've got, then?" he shouted wildly, whipping his head from side to side. That was when Dean realized that he, Natasha, and the angel weren't the only ones there—apparently, when Hyde attacked him, the rest had moved in. Clint and Natasha stood side by side, next to Rose, whose eyes were blazing with gold, and John, his gun arm raised steadily. Steve held his shield high, its silver star glinting even in the dimness, and Tony hovered a few inches above the ground, sheathed entirely by his trademark red-and-gold suit. Thor stood on Dean's other side, Mjolnir raised towards the skies, his strong features alight with determination.

"There's no way out, Hyde!" Steve shouted as the monster continued to wordlessly survey the perfect circle of soldiers around him, all with their weapons out and their eyes bright, not one holding a trace of uncertainty in anything about them. "Give up—now, if you know what's good for you."

"Give up?" Hyde chuckled. "But I'm just starting to have _fun!_"

And, without hesitating for another second, he ducked in, slipping with that blurring speed towards Steve—this time, it was clear that he wouldn't hesitate to snap the neck.

He barely made it two paces, however, before he was cut off, entirely without warning.

One moment, they were the only ones in the street—and the next, the foundation of the very planet seemed to rattle as something else exploded from one of the small alleyways leading to the wide street—something massive, something bellowing, something very, very green.

It would appear that Sherlock had unleashed their final weapon.

Hyde never had a chance. The ground cracked beneath the Hulk's feet as it launched itself forwards, tearing through the ring of still fighters, its powerful hand reaching out and crushing Hyde's shoulder within its acid-hued grasp. The thin creature wailed in pain, an almost animalistic caterwaul, but the Hulk only tightened his grip, dragging Hyde back from Steve and holding him there—not killing him, not quite, but forcing him violently into a kneeling position, inches away from slamming him into the ground. Hyde choked, shuddering, clearly trying with all the strength he possessed to break away from the inhuman force.

Tony's voice, even muffled and tinny through his suit, couldn't have made it clearer just how wide he was grinning.

"Game over."


	15. Dispersal

**A/N** _And this is the end. Thanks a ton for all the great feedback, and I hope you all enjoyed!_

**Thanks to **_Sam Winchester, Alex, mudkipz, and Kathrin J Pearl_

**Disclaimer** _I don't own Sherlock/Doctor Who/Supernatural/the Avengers/Jekyll, or any associated characters, events, etc._

* * *

**CHAPTER XV. **_Dispersal_

Hyde's eyes had never been darker. Blackness seemed to fill them from lid to lid, almost liquid, shining eerily in the sharp white light as he wove his head sideways, shoulders rolling and fingers clenching in and out. His nails were sharp enough to dig into his palms at what looked like a painful level of severity, but there was no discomfort in his expression—nothing but icy, chilling fury.

With a wild snarl, he launched himself forwards.

And collided with the thick glass of his prison.

Dean laughed, rapping on it lightly with his knuckles. The ringing seemed to aggravate the creature, who staggered backwards with an animal whimper, scratching obsessively at his wrist as though doing so eased the simmering anger at his defeat. The look he shot towards Dean would have been frightening if he wasn't entirely positive that the being posed no threat at this point—in fact, he'd never felt better about the end of a hunt.

"Aw, are you all trapped in your little cage?" he teased, his fingers dancing over the glass. "Shame. I thought you were tougher than that. But, then again, this is a bit more than you're used to, right? Torchwood might be impressive, but _this—_this is the real deal."

Hyde snarled.

"Yeah, I know, buddy. Sucks to suck."

"Dean," Castiel sighed from beside him, apparently exasperated with his childish glee. He turned towards the angel with his eyebrows drawn into an expression of mock-hurt, mouth turned down.

"What?"

"Do not taunt him. He's been through enough already without having to suffer such excessive shaming."

"Yeah, but he's also _killed _about a billion people."

"If he had been responsible for the death of a _billion _people, the population of Earth would have greatly—"

"Dude, dude, I know," Dean chuckled, holding a hand up. "Trust me. I'm not completely dumb." His voice had softened, though, staring into Castiel's intent blue eyes, and it was with an almost sweet hint to his tone that he jabbed a thumb towards the door of the darkened room which shared a wall with Hyde's new living space, where they had come to observe just how the demented creature was getting along in imprisonment. "We should probably go see what's up with the others, though. Don't want them to have to deal with Fury's shit alone, right?"

"Right," Cas agreed softly. For a moment, though, he hesitated, his shoulders held oddly stiff, his gaze flickering up and down Dean's face as the hunter's easy smile slowly melted away.

"Hey… you okay?"

"I am fine. It's… it's nice to see you… happy again. Truly happy."

For a moment, Dean considered spitting out some sort of defense, exclaiming how of _course _he was happy, how there was nothing unusual about that. But he stopped the instinctive lies, pinning them to his tongue and forcing himself to swallow them. This was Cas. He didn't have to pretend for Cas.

"You know what?" He glanced back towards Hyde for a brief second, reveling in the satisfaction that filled his stomach at the sight of the creature's helpless position, and even more so in the warmth that tickled his chest when he turned back to look at Cas's quiet face. "It feels nice, too."

* * *

"You have, I must admit, done a… rather stupendous job."

Fury looked at least externally bitter at forcing the words out, but there was a certain softness underlying his tone, something almost fond, that stopped his phrases from biting. This was praise, Rose recognized; grudging, even irritated, but praise nonetheless. He was proud of them. Happy with them. And if he couldn't show that on the surface, well… this _was _Fury, after all.

"Stupendous, indeed," Tony agreed. He was in his usual spot near the front—they had, it seemed, begun to settle into instinctive positions in the conference room. There were minute differences, however; the group as a whole seemed to be closer together, with fewer empty chairs to separate them. It wasn't really a conscious thing, not even one that many of them noticed, but there were a few—Sherlock, the Doctor, Castiel, Natasha—whom the difference didn't escape. "In fact, I'd say we deserve some sort of reward—"

"Your reward, Stark," Fury sighed, "is peace. Or at least a semblance of it. And it probably won't last more than a couple of days, if the past is any indication, but it is nice while it's there."

"No kidding," Dean agreed with a short laugh.

Rose wasn't going to disagree, because nothing in her thoughts did drastically differ from the opinions that the rest of them were so enthusiastically expressing. And yet… she couldn't say she agreed, either. Not exactly. Of course peace was nice, but the chase was _nicer—_the planning, the movement, the drama, the excitement. A SHIELD mission was everything and more that any journey with the Doctor had been. More, because there were more _of _them—not just her constant alien companion, whose side she was sure she would never depart again, but all of them, Sherlock and John, Dean and Cas, Tony and Bruce, Steve and Thor, Clint and Natasha. They were her _friends, _and that was powerful enough to render her own impending departure bittersweet.

For depart she would. She knew that very well. She and the Doctor—neither of them were meant for this sort of life, for sitting in wait of a summons, leisurely passing the time and anticipating the day that their help would be needed again. Their life was made of seeking out the danger, just like Dean's or Sherlock's, and, as would the two of them and their own partners, she and the Doctor weren't going to stay at SHIELD now that the immediate threat had passed.

Still, she could savor her time there just a bit longer. There was no reason to wait—in fact, a bit of a delay was rather welcome; the Doctor had warned her about the Master and just how irritated he was likely to be by the addition of a new companion, and though she was sure that they'd manage to get along—eventually—she wasn't exactly looking forward to meeting a former insane murderer who had conveniently "switched over" to the good side.

And if that delay was filled with Fury's praise, or the closest thing he could manage to it, then that was just as well.

"Truly, though," the Director went on once the soft titters in accordance with Dean's comment died down, "you have performed far beyond what I expected, and for that I do thank you. Even I have to be proved wrong once in a while, and you couldn't have done so more effectively. It was a remarkable effort, a remarkable success, and you—you are all a remarkable team."

Tony smirked, folding his hands behind his head, Castiel dipped his chin in gratitude, and Sherlock quirked a brow in what could almost be humored agreement. They all knew that his words were true, of course, and no one tried to deny it. They had known all along—which was why, of course, they had struck out in the first place, doing what was unquestionably right even in the face of an insistence otherwise.

It was true.

They were remarkable.

* * *

Two days passed before the Doctor decided that they were stretching their luck just a bit too far. It was surprising enough that they'd managed to last this long without some farther disturbance, and he was sure that if they happened to be around by the time SHIELD did end up with another mission, Fury would doubtless rope them into helping out. He wasn't ready for anything big like that again, not yet; so on the third morning of peace, he woke up and knew immediately what had to be done.

"Rose," he trilled brightly, lifting his pillow and tossing it over to her bed. It hit her straight on the shoulder, and she yelped, sitting up instantly with her bed-wrecked blonde hair tangled about her flushed cheeks.

"The hell are you on about?" she demanded, the words slurred.

"Excuse you," he retorted, hopping off and adjusting the bathrobe that he'd managed to procure during their time at SHIELD. She watched him, looking quite sleepy and entirely unimpressed as he strode over to the thin mirror affixed to the wall and considered his reflection.

"Is there a reason that you had to do that?" she questioned, shoving the offending pillow onto the floor, where it landed with a soft thump.

"Right…" He ran his hair critically over his hair. "We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Her tone sharpened quite suddenly, and she stood as well, hurrying to his side. "Now?"

"Before breakfast. They won't miss us—I'll send a note to their computers from the TARDIS telling them not to worry."

"Any reason for the haste?" she questioned, neither agreeing nor protesting with his sudden decision. She was used to impulsivity from him, at least to some extent, but there was no denying that this was particularly unsettling.

He considered fibbing—didn't even realize, for a moment, that it would be a lie to say no. Something about her eyes, though—wide, dark, almost concerned—stopped him, and he swallowed, his eyes moving over their twin reflections, considering. It really was amazing to see her beside him again—to know that they would continue on after his, after Canary Wharf, after everything.

"I suppose," he murmured, ducking away, "that I'm just bad at goodbyes."

"Reasonable enough," she shrugged, her lips moving into a quick grin. She reached out, then, and took his hand—lightly, gently, squeezing it and running her thumb over his wrist. "Right now? You're sure?"

"Definitely sure." It was, admittedly, a relief that she didn't argue—he had told the truth; he was perfectly awful at farewells, especially in this regeneration, it would seem. They carried with them a sort of degree of permanency that he absolutely detested, that always seemed to creep into his subconscious and poison him with doubt, with the lingering thought that perhaps he wouldn't see them again. Leaving suddenly, though, impulsively—well, that was only ever a _be right back, _and he never did fail to be back, sooner or later.

"Alright, then." She moved just a bit closer, her shoulder brushing against his, and he felt a sudden rush of light tingling all through the veins of his arms, tickling under his skin, burning and itching in a way that was the opposite of painful. He glanced down in amazement to see that he was _glowing, _streaks of pale gold extending from where her fingers touched his, mirrored by a perfectly symmetrical reaction in her own tissue.

"It's quite something, teleportation," she laughed softly. Her words were oddly resonant, and a faint buzzing had begun to rise up at the back of what were either his ears or his mind, lingering but far from unpleasant. "Takes some getting used to, but it's certainly convenient."

Wonderingly, he turned back to the mirror, watching as the shower of gold crept up to steadily envelop his whole body, small glittering particles weaving themselves through his hair and the threads of his robe, until he was completely covered, could no longer see himself through the soft hazy cloud.

A split second later, he heard the soft groaning of the TARDIS in motion, and his lips curled into a full grin for the first time since he had risen, an excitement entirely apart from the stimulation of the vortex energy stirring in his stomach.

Here he was, after all this time, in the TARDIS with his Koschei and his Rose.

It was perfect.

* * *

Dean Winchester hated goodbyes at least as much as the Doctor.

Unlike the Time Lord, though, he couldn't avoid them entirely, and so it was only after a near hour of awkward back-patting and stilted but warm farewells that he finally found himself in the comfortable driver's seat of his Impala again, Castiel at his side, gazing out onto the comfortable dirt track of the road winding away before them. Cas had transported them back to the motel where they'd been at the start of it all, and his baby was waiting there, as dark and sleek as always, as though they hadn't neglected her for several days on end. It was the best feeling in the world, he thought, to feel her purr underneath him after days apart, to settle his hands over the shape of the steering wheel and crank up the stereo and let his music blast through the dry air again, sailing over sandy Texan countryside. His left arm dangled out of the window, fingers tapping against the black metal of the car door in tune to Styx's quick rhythms. _Lawman said get 'im dead or alive, now it's for sure he'll see me dead…_

"Find anything yet?" he asked Castiel, glancing to where the angel had a newspaper held in his hands, dark eyes carefully running along its fine lines of text.

"No," the angel murmured apologetically, folding the paper and setting it aside for the time being. "There doesn't seem to be anything unusual within a day's radius."

"Fine," Dean agreed with a light shrug that was far from disappointed. "I could use a break every once in a while. It's nice, you know, to just be able to… relax."

"I agree," Castiel said softly, glancing almost shyly over to Dean. He smiled, then—not widely, not toothily; it was barely more than a gentle curling of his lips, tentative, sweet, but it was enough for Dean to give a wide grin in return, to reach over and ruffle his already mussed dark hair in a gesture of utter fondness.

And it was nice—even with Sam gone, even with as much responsibility on his shoulders as ever, with as many monsters in the world—it was nice, for the time, to just be able to drive with Cas, think of nothing but the road ahead and the angel beside him.

_The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me, the renegade who had it made retrieved for a bounty… nevermore to go astray, this'll be the end today for the wanted man…_

* * *

Sherlock and John, of course, were the last to leave. Natasha brought them home just as she had dropped them off, though SHIELD this time managed to procure a much more comfortable aeroplane than the cramped jet that had first delivered them to America. A taxi carried them from the airport to 221b Baker Street, where they stood now, the two of them up by the door, Natasha on the sidewalk, all three—even the cold-faced detective—filled with a soft sort of nostalgia at the departure, and all sensing it in the others, though none of them spoke a word about it.

"I suppose we'll be back sometime, then," John said, glancing up and down the street. It was wonderful, even despite the bittersweet quality of the departure, to see the cars and pedestrians flashing back and forth again, to know that they were home once more, that there was a whole city of crime awaiting them, ready to satisfy the constant thirst of Sherlock's mind, not to mention his own unsettled ache for adventure.

"You can bet on it," Natasha promised with a smirk. "I'll do what I can to be the one to retrieve you again—I'm growing a bit fond of this doorstep." Her words were joking without being sarcastic, and John laughed—even Sherlock's eyes glinted with what might have been humor.

"I look forward to it," John declared.

"It was an honor to work with you, Dr. Watson, Mr. Holmes." She extended a hand, which each of them shook in turn, then stepped away briskly, her shoulders straight and her step light. "Chances are that it won't be long—SHIELD can always use a spare genius."

And, without another word, she hopped off the curb and into the waiting taxi, shutting the dark door behind her and taking off down the road. Within seconds, the cab had turned a corner and disappeared, as if it had never been there in the first place.


End file.
